


Where there is light

by QueenPotatos



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Claude is a Sun God, Dimiclaude Birthday Week (Fire Emblem), Dimitri is his Shadow, M/M, Pining, also there's one use of Divine Impulse, angst with happy ending, canon violence nothing more, day 1 : night and day, kind of, no beta we die like Glenn, some short explicit sexual content, the opposite of slow burn tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:21:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25938073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenPotatos/pseuds/QueenPotatos
Summary: Claude, The Golden Deer, is a Sun God whose powers resides in his horns. The day he is attacked and his horns stolen, he falls on Fodlan and starts a journey to gain back his power. In his adventure he's helped by Dimitri, his Shadow, who protected him since the day he was born, but who Claude never saw before, for his light makes him vanish on the spot. Passed the shock of this most absurd revelation, the two of them will travel together and try to untangle the nature of this unique tide that binds them together, against all odds, and despite Dimitri's gloomy behaviour.What happened to him, to be this grave, and why is Claude so irresistibly drawn to him?
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	Where there is light

**Author's Note:**

> Happy DimiClaude Bday week !! Thank you everyone who organized the event and thank you everyone who participate, artists, writers and readers !  
> Here is my first entry, it's a 23k one shot Meek's art inspired me! Have a good read.

* * *

# Where there is light

.

* * *

Since the beginning of time there has been a war, endless, between the Heavens and Hell, between Gods and Demons, a fight of Light against Darkness. The lands of Fódlan, crunched in the middle, have been protected from the ones called Those Who Slither In The Dark by the Goddess Sothis, bathed in Her light. The Goddess of dawn got rid of this most serious threat on humans’ lives long ago, by shutting these demons away inside the Earth itself, and left them to be born and reborn in a world without light. As she gained back the Heavens She left behind children made from a braid of her Hair and made them Sun Gods, whose light has been defending the lands of Fódlan from their never resting nemesis to this day.

Claude, the Golden Deer, protects his own territory, the lands of the Leicester Alliance and he has done so for a couple of centuries without failing. Honouring the name the Goddess gave him, on his head rest golden horns, majestic and glowing, always, and the golden cape he wears above his white tunic completes his attire. To humans’ eyes Claude looks nothing but perfect, and he shines too much to be gazed upon more than a second without risking their mortal eyes to burn and be shut forever. Claude’s own green eyes, bright like emeralds, are all it takes to make the darkness vanished, and everywhere he looks Claude brings the light, he brings life, he cures the most deadliest diseases and harvests grounds, makes the flowers bloom and the birds sing his praise.

Claude is adored, by many; but as it is natural in life, for it treats all kind of living form equally, love attracts hate, and hate envy, even from his peers. This is why Claude prefers to live far from the Goddess Tower where the rest of them live, finding in the presence of other Sun Gods something that makes him uneasy, be it from the looks he thinks they give him, or something else he can’t quite put his finger on yet - but there is definitely something that puts him on edge every time they stare at his face.

Yet, despite the solitude he chose as his sole companion, as he enjoys the life his eyes produce and watches over his lands, he can’t help but feel watched, as if a pair of eyes were always set on the back of his neck. But every time he looks around, no one stand behind him; it’s like a hidden presence, constantly on his back, he feels it too at night - like a blanket around his waist, like a hand on his shoulder when he needs support, fingertips brushing against his own at time. He feels but never sees, to the point when he started to question his sanity a couple of years ago.

To think he had to wait until this day to finally have the answer to this most curious inquiry.

Claude is summoned to the Goddess Tower at the end of his watch. His protector, Hilda, an old friend of his, walks to him with her giant axe on her shoulder. It shines with rubies.

“I don’t want to know what you did this time Claude, but Judith seemed upset.”

And Claude sighs; perhaps he has, unconsciously, being more careless than what his position permits him to again, and risks his presence in territories where he shouldn’t have dared to wander – but it is irresistible, to watch the transformation of a dead leaf to a magnificent oak in the blink of an eye, and who is Claude to deprive Earth from such a miracle when it is so easy of him to grant his power to the lands he adores?

“And the Prophet is here, so you might want to get that grin off of your face before we enter the Antechamber.” She warns him, her face as serious as she can be when they approach the gate to honour Claude’s summoning.

Inside Claude gazes up to the Three Seats, occupied by his aunt Judith and Byleth, The Prophet and Gods of all Sun Gods, while the middle one, the highest, is empty, for it is none but the Goddess’ Seat.

“Golden Deer.” Judith talks, her voice clear, “Come here, my boy.”

And indeed she does look quite serious, which takes away Claude’s silliness and will for a good word as he so often uses and forces him to remain quiet and obedient. They walk to them, Hilda a couple of steps behind; she kneels when Claude halts. “What is it, Hero of House Daphnel? Why summoning me before my time has come?”

“We’ve been warned about a most disturbing element concerning your safety and thought it would be best to put you in the confidence before another tragedy occurs to one of Foldan’s Gods.” Hilda gets on her feet immediately, feeling responsible for Claude’s security. “We’ve been informed that Those Who Slither In The Dark are been active again, and some have already threatened your life, at multiple times.”

“What?” Hilda exclaims, “I have been awake for moons now, and none of those evil creatures have stepped into the Heavens!”

“I’m afraid it does not concern Claude’s time here with us, but the one he uses to visit Fódlan, and especially some places he isn’t supposed to.”

Hilda gasps. “Claude! Don’t tell me you ventured to places forbidden to us?”

Claude rolls his eyes, how can they know about all his comes and goes? In any cases, as a mere Protector Hilda cannot leave the Heavens, so whatever had _almost_ happened must have occurred while in was visiting Earth. “What if I do? I never encountered any enemy. Besides, were my gaze to fall on them, my enemies would vanish into dust on the spot. I have never felt in danger, at any time.”

“It’s because your Shadow protects you.” Byleth speaks, finally.

Claude frowns. Did he hear right? “My _Shadow_?” he repeats.

Is that a joke?

Claude is a Sun God. He turns around to prove his point. “This is silly. I don’t have one. My body is literally made of light.”

“And where there is light, there are shadows.” They add, most mysteriously.

Claude has never heard of anything of the sort. Him, having a shadow? What is it even?

“After what happened to Lambert, the Lion King, we thought it was essential to protect Sun Gods against our deadliest enemy. And since you’re the one who is the most...difficult to handle,” Judith speaks with a sort of satisfaction he can’t quite understand, that is usual when one talks about their protégé - nonetheless, her tone makes him pout, “We thought you’d need one more than any other. In that extend, a Shadow has been assigned to you the moment you were born.”

“Assigned? Since my birth?” Claude inquires, how come he never knew, how come they never told him, how come he never guessed? “Nonsense. If it indeed had been here for so long I would have known. I’ve never seen it.”

“It’s because your eyes chase your own shadow.” They say. “You’ve never seen it, but it has been with you, always, and it protects you from all the things you can’t have your eyes on.”

His Shadow warned them of the threat, and it is the reason of his presence here.

“Shadows are creatures of the Darkness that have sworn to protect us from their own kind, but yours is a bit special.” Byleth explains when Claude asks again what his invisible protector is made of. “Do not worry, for he will vanish like dust, as you say, if even the thought of harming you comes to his mind.”

“He?”

“You’ve been assigned with a damned soul that once lived in the Heavens. He’s been working lovely so far, to my biggest regret.” Judith says, her chin resting on her palm – a nasty attack, but once which Claude will easily recover from. “And he will do so until he atones for his sins.”

To atone for his sins? Is his Shadow some sort of criminal? And what does it make him then, a kind of punishment?

“In any case, be utterly careful. Your Shadow hinted that he had more and more difficulties to defend you from your attackers, and our mother Sothis only knows how strong he is.”

“Don’t worry then.” Claude’s finger points to his horns, “Nothing can happen to me as long as I keep these beauties safe.”

Claude goes out of the Antechamber, upset to have been kept in the dark for so long about something so important. A Shadow? For a Sun God? What a farce! He doesn’t need protection anyway, even Hilda and her ridiculously big axe never had to fight for his sake.

“Have you heard about it before?” Hilda is a couple of centuries older than he, perhaps she has heard something.

“No, but I do remember how terrible the attack on Lambert had been, before you were born and took his place.” She tells him as they walk to the exit of the Goddess Tower. “Sothis was devastated. His son, who was his Protector as I am to you, went mad after it happened, and from what I remember he butchered any living souls that were in the room with them, evils and Gods alike. I guess they just don’t want this tragedy to happen again.”

Claude quickly turns to her face. “Will you kill everyone is the room if I were to be murdered? And by everyone, I mean my aunt.”

“In your dreams.” She replies tiredly. Well, at least he tried – but she knows, too well, how much these two adore the other, and how much of a game this is for them.

The news is disturbing at best, and Claude cannot rest now that he knows his existence is linked to someone else – has always been, since the day he was born – and to a criminal, on top of everything. How could he have never noticed before?

Unless...unless…

They don’t have time to leisure though, Fate doesn’t permit such a luxury, and it’s like Claude’s summoning had been anticipated by those who wish to harm him.

There’s an explosion, followed by a couple of cries. People of the Heavens run away to the clouds, leaving the Agora completely empty except for them, some Knights and debris. Hilda pushes Claude aside, her axe his hands. “Claude, you need to leave!”

“And where is my Shadow when I need him, hn?”

“Think a little! You’re in the Goddess Tower, the house of light! Do you really think a Shadow can enter here?!”

Well, she has a point.

Yet why the explosion? Where does it come from? There’s smoke and dust everywhere, it’s utter chaos. Byleth runs with the Sword of the Creator in hands, a sign it is indeed, a most serious threat.

“Claude! Watch out!” A ray of purple light comes out of the smoke directly toward them, which Hilda blocks with her axe. But the blow is so strong it pushes her backwards and she loses her balance, hitting Claude in the process, and the ray sends them out of the Agora directly in the entrance of the Goddess Tower. The World, Fódlan, is just a couple of metres below.

“They were right! You’re their target Claude!” Hilda shouts, she can’t see where the enemy comes from and the reinforcement seems not to know where they are, lost in the smoke.

“How did they get in there to begin with? The Darkness isn’t supposed to reach the Heavens!”

Hilda bites on her lips, someone is coming. “Then it might be something else.”

A man covered with black clothes from head to toes comes out of the smoke. His face is exposed, and Hilda gasps. “You-“ she breathes, before another ray of light flies in her direction - but it is not aimed for her, the beam goes for Claude and passes just above her shoulder. Claude only has time to blink, thinking who it might be that Hilda recognizes and who he does not see, before he gets hit head on and screams in agony when his horns fall from his head and to the void, disappearing behind the clouds, falling in Fódlan and its vast territory.

Claude puts a foot on the guardrail. “Claude! No!” and ignoring Hilda’s warning, he jumps to Fódlan, to retrieve his lost power.

The fall never seems to end and more than ever he wishes it to be immediate, to have already landed on his territory, to search for his horns – how dare they, _how dare they !_ Claude is enraged. They took the most precious thing from him, they took his power, they took his light! They won’t get away with it so easily!

Claude sees earth getting closer and prepares for the impact, but he never thought that without his horns, he’ll lost more than his light, but also most of his power.

He had never felt pain before, and he cries when his bones break at the impact.

It is dark, so dark. The Moon Goddess isn’t up yet and he can’t see a damn thing.

“Can you walk?” A voice asks. It’s a friend, Claude knows it, but why? “I’ll hold you if you can’t.”

Claude feels he’s being lifted from the ground and his stomach ends on a board shoulder, his face down the stranger's back; against his cheek he feels something soft, wool perhaps, from the stranger’s coat. “Hey! Put me down!” He groans, but finds himself powerless, literally; his hands won’t use his magic anymore, and his legs still hurt so strongly.

“You won’t be able to do one step if I were to drop you here, and you’ll die in an instant. Look, Golden Deer,” and Claude lifts his head to look behind his saviour’s back and he sees, for the first time, what Earth looks like without his light. Demons are lurking behind every tree, every bush, every rock; he watches them watch him with their red, glowing eye, their unshaped form shaking with the wind like ghosts, and for the first time in a while, Claude is scared, so scared to die.

“Those Who Slither In The Dark,” the stranger murmurs to Claude, “You must not touch them. They’ll send you to Hell, where you’ll live and suffer for eternity.”

Claude turns silent on the spot. He keeps his eyes open as they walk, there is always a new demon to stare at him with envy and greed; Claude is their pray for the very first time, he whose gaze used to make the same creatures vanish from the sacred Earth.

The most improbable duo walks for a while, Claude can’t quite tell how much, as his mind is busy absorbing all the news that has happened so suddenly – he was warned, he was attacked, he lost his horns, he doesn’t shine anymore – and the most important question arises when finally his legs stop hurting and his bones have mended.

“I can walk now. Put me down.” The man still walks, his rhythm identical, it’s like he can’t hear his voice at all. “Please.”

“When we arrive at some place safe.” He’s replied, to his displeasure. “Until then you have to stay with me. They won’t try to hurt you if you’re with me.”

“Why? What are you, why are you helping me?” Because it is what’s happening right? Claude is a Sun God who jumped into the void from the Heavens and he crashed, and now a stranger is helping him, and Claude doesn’t know why but the voice is so familiar, and this man seems to know everything about him already, when he is so sure they have never met.

Unfortunately it seems he isn’t what Claude would call talkative, which he finds so regrettable. It would have permit, perhaps not to enjoy the trip, but at least to make their journey, wherever he is taking them, easier to go through. Unexpectedly Claude finds out he distinguishes more and more their whereabout, as if he has been blind for a moment and his sight recovers slowly thanks to some kind of miracle, or white magic perhaps. Soon he recognizes the place the man halts to, as it is none but one of the Temple the humans built for him to celebrate his grandeur. The light here is dim as the edge of dawn. Claude is being put against a wall gently, and his saviour seats in front of him.

“What have you done?” The man asks, and for the first time Claude hears anger in his voice. “What made you lose your horns at such a critical moment!? Claude, you’ve been reckless, as usual I assume.”

“Hey, we were attacked, and even my Protector couldn’t do a thing against it.”

“They attacked the Goddess Tower? The same pattern than four centuries ago…” Suddenly the man looks down, deep in thought, perhaps even a bit wounded if Claude had to guess and he takes the opportunity, with the help of the dim light they are given thanks to the few remaining power that resides in his Temple, to observe him, to make sure they truly are strangers, something his eyes affirm but which his heart refutes.

Even if he’s presently sitting Claude knows the man is tall, taller than him at least – he felt his shoulder and back, he’s not a giant but fairly close to – and he’s wearing a black armour from head to toes, well, almost. His face has a strong jawline and what strikes him first, of course, is the eye patch, the lines under his other eye and the blue that so paradoxically shines. His blond hair falls haphazardly around his face, and Claude can now tell, after he studied him for long minutes, that there is no chance they have met before.

“What’s your name?”

Yet the man protected him; he knows his title, even his name.

He looks up, Claude’s ask took him out of his reverie. He hesitates, before he replies, eventually, “Dimitri.”

And of course Claude knew. His lips spoke the name the same moment Dimitri replied, and it becomes evident then that Claude is finally facing his Shadow.

After all this time, it’s him. It’s _Dimitri_.

He’s been with him the moment he was born, he protected him before Claude could walk or talk, watched over him on his every excursion, warned the Gods about the attacks on his person, which he seems less and less able to defend him from.

“It’s you.” He breathes, he’s not even sure Dimitri can hear him from this far, and he’d be glad if he didn’t; there are feelings that his tone conveyed he isn’t sure he likes, for they are too strong for the short time they have spent together, and he hadn’t had the time to analyse them.

Dimitri stares back at him, as if he knew what they meant better than Claude.

He shivers at the sight.

* * *

They spent the night at the Temple for Claude to recharge some energy, since even a few could permit them to travel to the next one without being trapped by complete darkness. Dimitri explained while they rest that Claude will gradually gain his powers back the closer they will be to his horns, but which also means their enemies will be more powerful to protect it, and the only clues they will have that they have chosen the right path would be the increasing strength of the opponents they cross blades with.

When Dimitri decides the temple is enlightened enough, he stands up and walks to Claude. “We shall go.”

“Where are we going?”

“After what you told me about the attack I have a feeling I know what our enemy might look like. They most likely hide in Garreg Mach Monastery.”

Claude gets on his feet, helped by Dimitri’s hand. His armour is as cold as the depth of the night and Claude questions the presence of the deep blue cross on his breast, as it cannot be meant to represent his heart – is that an old wound? He looks so severe with his frown and long coat, unapproachable even for him, and in the short time he has been informed of the existence of something as absurd as having a Shadow, Claude never thought it would look any bit like this.

And talking about appearance, Claude notices only now, thanks to the dim light he provides, that his has changed as well: his white tunic is now black and his golden cape that used to shine as bright as his horns has been changed into a dull yellow one.

“So,” they have been walking for some time now, how much it is impossible to say, since they couldn’t align on the time of the day, and Dimitri has yet to pronounce a word. “How are you? I mean, how have you been? I mean, how is it to be a Shadow?”

“It’s tiring.” He says sharply. “Especially being yours.”

“I guess you haven’t been exactly…bored, yes.” Claude has to admit he’s keen on adventuring to forbidden territories, and almost feels bad for forcing his bad decisions on someone else; but how can he be blamed when he had no idea that another soul was sharing his Fate to begin with? “And what do your days look like?”

In front of him, Dimitri sighs before replying, “I watch your back.”

“And?”

“That’s all.”

Claude can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. “Oh.” He’d figured his Shadow would be thrilled to finally _talk_ to him, since Dimitri has known Claude for centuries, when Claude has known of him for even less than a day, and already assaults him with inquiries.

Perhaps Dimitri doesn’t like him much; this is where his first conclusion leads him.

Perhaps he thinks Claude is too reckless and caused him too much pain and injuries to be ever forgiven. His missing eye is a proof that speaks for itself.

Claude tries to think about something else, something less dark.

“Oh! A kitty! I love kittens.” Claude halts and knells in front of a bush where the cutest creature has disappeared a second ago. His hand goes inside the leaves.

“Claude! Step back!” Dimitri yells behind him but it’s too late; the adorable kitten turns itself to be a demon and it has bitten Claude’s hand. The wound burns like poison. Dimitri swops on him like a feline and destroys the bush, makes it burst into flames with a lance he got, possibly, out of nowhere.

Claude sees as bright as day the purple mark of fangs on his hand. It isn’t bad as in deadly, but he’ll probably won’t be able to use his hand when the poison would reach the nerves.

“Let me see.”

Dimitri takes his hand, Claude looks up. He frowns. “Is it,” his eyes set on the lance Dimitri wields that has been absent a minute ago, which illuminates the wood better than Claude’s weakened power, “Is this Areadbhar?”

He asks but he recognizes a Relic when he sees one. How can Dimitri be in possession of such a holy artefact, and how can a mere Shadow touch it without being burned at the contact? If he’s not mistaken, the weapon belonged to none but his predecessor, Lambert the Lion King as they called him.

“There. You’re healed.” And did he just use white magic on his hand?

“How can this be?” Claude asks. Judith told him his Shadow had been banned from the Heavens, he shouldn’t be able to use this kind of power so close to his. Dimitri dodges the question again; he gets up and takes Claude by the arms. “Hey! You aren’t responding to any of my inquiries! This isn’t fair.”

“This is unimportant. Taking you alive to the Monastery is my only mission and talking obviously makes you unfocused and clumsy.”

“Me? Unfocused?” Claude exclaims, “Have you really been spending all this time with me?”

“More than you think.” Claude halts, and Dimitri turns around, keeps holding his arm and brings back to his side. “Move. Stay close to me. Areadbhar will give us the light we need until your powers are back.”

In the end Claude complies, because after all Dimitri is concise but right, and he healed his wound just fine. The silence he plunges them in is just another opportunity to think about how he can wield Areadbhar, holding such a powerful light without being himself hurt by it. And how can he possess such a weapon to begin with? Claude thought it has been lost the night of the attack.

Could he have taken part in this tragedy? Is this what he’s atoning for?

No, the Goddess will have never permitted him to keep the Lion King’s lance if he had anything to do with his demise.

“You need to step closer to me,” Dimitri scolds him again. “The light won’t protect us long if you keep walking so far behind.”

Claude grasps on his coat and pulls his hand away the moment his fingers touch the fabric. The feeling is so familiar it burns.

“What?” Dimitri grunts, he eyes him severely – goddess, could he please stop treating him like the child he isn’t?

Claude lies to him, “Nothing,” he quite doesn’t know what to say anyway, but for a second, even if he knows how skilled he is at lying, Claude has a feeling Dimitri saw right through him and chose not to tell.

Yet the feelings can’t get out of his hand.

It turns out Claude recognizes their surroundings a bit more with each step they take and exit the forest. The moon is out, they must have walked for half a day.

“Be careful. The Night is the best ally of Those Who Slither In The Dark.” Dimitri warms him. “They dance as soon as you close your eyes and prepare for your execution.”

“My execution?”

“Indeed, haven’t I spoken clearly?”

“You did, but the news is almost unbelievable.” Demons wanting him dead, why? How? Haven’t they made a pack with the forces of the Night? How could the Moon betray them? “Why would they want to harm me?”

“Jealousy. Envy. Greed. Choose whatever you want. The human heart is full of defects, a not so well-hidden secret demons are keen on using against their enemies.”

“Human hearts? Are those-“

“Hush, Claude. They are coming.”

And indeed in the depth of the night forms take shape, creatures take off their coat of smoke and reveal their true forms: beast with red eyes, beefs, Minotaurs, lynx with bat’s wings, abominations Claude has never seen before and such a sight makes his blood run cold, frozen cold; his legs can’t advance, his hand by reflex holds on Dimitri’s coat. It’s reassuring, the feeling of the fabric against his skin. It feels like home.

It’s something he misses when stays with the other Sun Gods.

“Dimitri.” His voice quivers, he doesn’t know what to ask for.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take them down.” He takes Areadbhar in hand, his eyes frowning at his future victims, “Just stay close to me.” And he surges on their enemies, his lance and its light making them crumbled like sandcastle the moment it touches them. “Out of my way!” he yells when more creatures comes, giant spiders fangs, a horse with two heads, and before he knows it Claude has hidden his head against Dimitri’s shoulder behind his coat and he’s holding his waist and he stops thinking for a second, because how can it be so familiar, how can he know how it feels to be in his embrace, as if he had been so used to the presence of his arms around him, his aura, his strength protecting him?

Dimitri puts a hand on his shoulder through the thick fabric of his coat. “It’s over, you can get out now.”

Claude picks his head. The demons have gone indeed. Nothing but ashes remains behind. “Thank you.” He breathes. His voice can’t speak louder than this.

“It is my duty. Can you walk?”

Yes, probably. He doesn’t want to though. His heart beats so fast and so hard against his chest, and he knows it won’t calm down alone, not if he gets out of Dimitri’s embrace. “No.” He lies again, but he doesn’t care if he’s not believed this time. He doesn’t want to let him go.

“You don’t have to worry, Claude. I will always have your back.”

And for the first time there’s something actually gentle in his voice Claude can’t quite resist, he gets out, more because he wants to show him he’s going to behave, finally, than because he feels ready to; the outside world is still terrifying for him without his light, but at least with Dimitri by his side it seems almost plausible to survive in such a hostile environment.

It’s only now that he sees it. A wound, on his face, just below his good eye; there’s a scratch, no longer than his thumb.

Claude moves his hand. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing.” Dimitri takes a step back.

“Please,” Claude pursues him, Dimitri isn’t the only one that can use white magic after all. “Let me heal you.”

“And using the few of the power you have still for such triviality?” And in the blink of an eye the gentleness is gone, entirely. Dimitri looks furious and his eye spits red, like a beast, like those demons he fought earlier, and after all isn’t he one of those, a creature from the Darkness who’s stuck with him, until his time comes? “You’re out of your mind. Think of the consequences.”

Claude might be foolish but he’s clever when he wants to. He holds Areadbhar et pulls Dimitri to him. His other hand ends on his cheek, in a second the wound is no more. “I know. But you’ve known that for quite a while, haven’t you?”

Dimitri pushes him away, almost slaps him; he groans and puts his coat around his shoulders properly, as to close himself from Claude. “You’re a fool. Now, let’s see how much more you can walk without fainting. Your next Temple is quite far.”

In hindsight it has been, indeed, quite a waste of his energy; but in the heat of the moment, the sight of a drop of his blood on his pristine face, a wound Dimitri owned to nothing but Claude’s stupidity, for being so reckless and having lost his horns, was unbearable to him. He only realizes now that the more they’ll walk, the more enemies will come, and if he’s too tired to walk Dimitri will have to hold him like before when his legs were broken, which could lead to more fatal injuries Claude would be too tired to heal.

He had been quite stupid indeed.

He doesn’t regret it though. He feels at peace with it.

* * *

Not only does Claude feel weak, but also extremely sleepy and hungry. They have been walking for perhaps hours, Claude has lost all sense of time and space due to the Darkness, and the moon has disappeared from the sky. A whole day has passed since he jumped from the Goddess Tower.

“I haven’t felt hungry in,” what, ages? Centuries? “A long time.”

“Your light usually fills your stomach. Now, you have to be fed like a human.”

Hgh, disgusting.

“We’ll need to hide while I hunt. You cannot come with me I’m afraid. I’ll stay close, don’t worry.”

Of course Dimitri knows a place, a cabin that is empty and where there’s rusted weapons, mostly used by a hunter – a short axe, a bow, another without a cord lies on the floor. There’s even a chimney, but Dimitri refuses they light a fire. “Fire is light. They’ll know we’re here.”

“How come we saw no human on our journey yet?” Claude asks. He’s suddenly cold. His body is slowly losing his Godlike powers. He’s becoming a human more and more as the hours run.

Dimitri gives him no reply. Perhaps he has none, or perhaps he doesn’t want Claude to know. “Here.” He puts his coat on his shoulder. “Rest while you can. Keep Areadbhar with you in any case. It’ll warn me if you’re in danger and I’ll come back on the spot. Don’t do anything reckless.”

Claude smiles tiredly. “As if I could.”

“Don’t forget I know you like the back of my hand. Don’t follow me.”

Claude’s smile deepens, for some reason. “I swear to you. I can’t.” And for once it’s not a lie.

Claude sits on a bed at the end of the cabin. Without his coat Dimitri, looks more…human, perhaps, less intimidating, and Claude notices easily how his waist is slender, more than he would have imagined, how his back is wild, his shoulders strong; it’s reassuring to watch it, to watch _him_ , even if it means he has to go. Dimitri takes the rusted axe and has a sword to his hip. He turns around before closing the door behind, and if Claude hasn’t been this far, perhaps he would have trusted his sight a bit more, and seen the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Claude is indeed extremely tired, but unfortunately Dimitri’s coat or Areadbhar’s power aren’t enough to shove the anguish away. He’s anxious of every noise, every crack, each time the wind blows against the broken window – Claude is on edge, he’s alerted, and Dimitri isn’t there to watch his back.

He has done so for so long. It’s the first time now, and Claude feels suddenly so vulnerable.

He stares at his hand. His fingers caress the fur around his shoulders; the effect is inexistent at best, nothing like the first time he touched the coat. The light from Areadbhar’s blade is perhaps refilling his power, but it’s cold, lifeless, and it does not fill the emptiness inside his heart, as Dimitri’s embrace once did.

No, not once.

Dimitri has always been there.

And now he’s gone.

Sometimes, he felt the ghost on his fingertips on his. He used to, always. It was him. He has always been here, and now Claude misses him. It’s like a part of his self has been ripped out of his chest. Claude cannot walk, because he misses his second leg, he can’t fight with one arm, his heart beats only half the time it should. He has always been here, but Claude’s light made it impossible for him to _see_ him.

It’s cold, even under the coat.

The wait is unbearable.

How can he keep still when he feels so incomplete?

He promised he wouldn’t follow him, but Dimitri knows him, he knows he’s coming despite the warning, if not why did he leave his lance behind?

He wants to reach, to be full again. It’s nothing he has any kind of control on.

He reaches the door. His legs are trembling already. It’s foolish, it’s stupid, and dangerous on top of everything, but Claude can’t stand the sudden loneliness. He’s never been alone, since the moment he was born; and he has never known his chance before he lost it, lost him.

The door closes behind him. There’s so much he needs to say.

“Dimitri!” he yells, hoping it will warn him about his disobedience, and make him run back faster. “Dimitri, where are you?”

The woods are empty, and for a second Claude is scared to death that he has been abandoned. But no, no Dimitri will have never let his coat and weapon behind. He can’t, they are too important for him.

The lance in hand used as a crutch, Claude takes the first path his eyes set on and advances slowly. The light from Areadbhar protects him somehow from small demons, as he sees their shadows walking around the halo it forms and never breaching through. Small balls of soot and coal follow his steps with curious eyes as he walks down the path leading to a tarn, limping along the way. He halts and looks around, but Dimitri doesn’t seem to be there. The air he breathes burns his throat, it’s too cold, to dry, “Dimitri!” he yells again. Would he be annoyed, upset, enraged by his behaviour? In a way, he hoped he would; indifference would feel even worse.

He retraces his steps, the wind blows his hair, he grasps the coat tighter around his shoulders. He needs to find him.

He halts. In front of the cabin Claude thinks he sees him, a silhouette dark as the night, immobile; he walks faster since his legs can’t permit him to run, too happy to join with him, “Dimitri!”

But alas it’s not. When he draws closer, the shape is smaller but larger, it’s not a human but an animal, or perhaps half of one, and the other part comes from the darkness the loss of his power plunges Fódlan in.

It’s a boar. A giant boar, with tusk of steel and eyes red and glowing, and it’s looking right at Claude.

His breath gets caught in his throat. He needs not to move. Perhaps it hasn’t really seen him. Perhaps it would let him alone – perhaps he’ll see the light from Areadbhar and let him go, perhaps he’ll recognize Dimitri’s coat and feared him, and he’ll let him go.

The boar cries instead, his leg hitting the ground as if he were preparing to surge on him at full speed. Maybe moving was the right choice in the end. Claude takes the only weapon he’s got in his hand, his legs shake, he’s so weak still and why on Fódlan did he decide on a whim to leave the cabin when Dimitri strictly forbade him to?

The boar charges, Claude screams; he holds the lance in front of him and wait for the impact, or perhaps for a lack of, hoping the light from Areadbhar will make the demon disappear when he’ll come closer, as it had done with smaller creatures.

And indeed it does, in fact, never reaches Claude. The boar cries in pain, a rusted axe planted between his eyes and Dimitri on his back. The demon arcs his back with the force of despair and unfortunately Dimitri falls on the ground with such a brutal attack. “No! Dimitri!” He throws him the lance but a second too late. The boar, still alive despite such a fatal wound, impales his tusk on Dimitri’s back – “No!” Claude yells – and throws him away against a tree. Claude watches, speechless, as his body doesn’t move after the impact.

“No…” He whispers. It can’t be.

The boar spats dark blood on the ground. It’s breathless, it is truly, a monster, a demon, and it’s the first one Claude sees from this close, and which terrifies him so much. Its legs crumble under his weight, blood runs from the axe to its maw; it’s dying, Claude somehow feels his dark energy leaving him. He walks to it, slowly, he kneels to where he threw Areadbhar, and stands in front of the beast.

He stabs him in the stomach. The demon cries, and then it’s gone, in smoke and ashes, blown away by the wind. Claude watches it go up in the air until his sight permits him to, until there’s not enough light to see where they fly.

On his side he hears a groan, _Dimitri_ , he runs to him – he forgets he can’t and crumbles at his feet. “Dimitri! You’re okay?” He caresses his cheek, there’s so little blood coming out of the corner of his lips, but it’s blood nonetheless. “Talk to me!”

His lips move but he’s too weak for Claude to hear. He brings his ear closer, and frowns when the words reach him eventually.

He doesn’t like being called a moron often, but perhaps this time he deserved it.

It turns out Dimitri, being a Shadow, needs to be placed in utter darkness to recover the strength he had lost – or so he says, because Claude is sure his magic could do the same wonders, but for some reasons, Dimitri refused his help, saying Claude needed rest perhaps as much as he did. It is his turns to keep guard the front door with Areadbhar while Dimitri sleeps on the bed, the window closed. Time passes slowly. At some point, Claude even talks to the small creatures that surround him, too scared – impressed? – to come closer. They form a nice circle now, Claude doesn’t really know why they are attracted to him like that, don’t they fear the light? In a sense, he can’t find anything threatening in them, and is about to give them pet names when he feels it.

Against his back, the warmth of Dimitri’s coat.

Except he has it, already, and has had for a while, protecting him from the cold and the wind but now he _feels_ it, or something, differently, and his fingertips tickle, and soon the palm of his hands too.

He puts them on the door behind. He’s here. Claude closes his eyes and sighs, even with woods separating them, he feels the warmth of Dimitri’s skin against his palm, and he knows he’s got his back against the door, just like Claude does.

Is it normal to feel this awful when someone leaves his side, and so good when they eventually reunite? If Dimitri had been a dark part of his soul directly from the start, perhaps he wouldn’t have been troubled this much; but Dimitri had a whole life before him, he isn’t someone born from the same braid of hair and he’s not someone that share his guts, his brain, his heart, so why? And how?

And why, when Claude has been completely unaware of his existence a couple of days ago, why has he become so essential to him?

It’s only the moment they part, he thinks, tries to rationalise, it’s like wearing a coat in the middle of winter, the moment someone takes it from his shoulders of course he’ll fear the cold and want it back again, but eventually he’ll get used to it, to the cold, and he won’t even need the coat anymore, nor want it.

That’s it. It’s like his coat. It’s soft and warmth, in a billion ways; he won’t miss it when it’s gone, he won’t miss him.

“Claude.” His voice is hushed by the door that separates them. “You should stop thinking. It costs you energy, and we need it. Areadbhar doesn’t have endless light like you used to.”

And Claude blushes, for no reason. “Okay, sorry.” He says.

He forgot all the things he wanted to tell him to begin with. Later, when they got better, Dimitri doesn’t ask why he tried to look for him.

* * *

As soon as he gets better Dimitri insists that Claude sleeps – since he has, in fact, not rest or eaten at all due to his caprice – while he keeps the door, and that they’ll be gone when Claude will feel rested enough.

“The demons are getting bigger, it’s a good sign.”

“It means the road will be more dangerous.”

“It means we’re getting closer to our goal.” He corrects him. Claude lays on his side, facing Dimitri who looks at everything but him for some reasons – is he upset still? – and adjusts his coat under his chin. He’s not cold, but it’s recomforting nonetheless.

“What would happen to you then? When I’ll get my horns back?”

A pause. He doesn’t like that.

“It’ll be like we used to be. I’ll protect your back.”

“The light from my eyes will forbid me to ever see you again.” Claude says for him. They both know it’s going to end up this way. It’s the only way after all, it’s Dimitri’s mission, his duty. “But before? When I’ll get more powerful as we’ll walk closer to the Monastery, isn’t there a chance that you’ll get weaker?”

Another pause. Claude thinks he has figured it out.

“Did my white magic actually healed you?” He asks then. He hopes he didn’t, in the end, caused more damage that he wanted to in first place.

“Yes, but yours only.” Dimitri replies. “My body has been accustomed to your light for centuries. Even if your eyes are powerful enough to make me disappear, the small amount you used to heal me is nothing I cannot handle.”

“Besides, you used to live in the Heavens too, am I right?”

Dimitri looks back at him, his eye furious. “Who told you that? Your aunt?” Claude nods. Dimitri looks to the door again. “That witch.”

“Finally something we both agree on.” He mutters, but Dimitri couldn’t hear.

There’s a moment that passes where Claude’s eyes are glued where Dimitri stand, on his face, the scar on his back the boar did to him, his armour black as the devil’s soul, the deep blue cross on his chest, his slender waist. He can’t find sleep, not like that. There’s something missing.

“Hey.” He calls out. Dimitri turns his head slowly. Claude is shy when their eyes meet. “Can you…” he takes out his hand from under the coat he uses as a blanket, unable to say more, to confess what his heart desires and demands. Dimitri watches his hand, then his face, and back at his hand again. He seems unsure of what to do. “Please.” Claude wonders what goes in his head. He knows they did it before. His body remembers, and now that he lays alone it’s wondering where the other has gone. So why being shy now, when for Claude it makes sense, since it’s the first time he knowingly asks for his presence, and Dimitri has never done differently since he became his Shadow?

Is it because now Claude can stare at him in the eye?

Is it because Dimitri sees how much his shine even without their divine light, or how his cheeks colour with prudishness and hope?

He steps forward, once, twice, and reaches the bed before Claude can blink an eye.

“Give me some space.” He says, almost timidly; Claude pushes the coat over them both and rolls on the other side.

An arm comes around his waist, he feels Dimitri’s breath against his neck, his blond hair tickles his cheek and suddenly it all comes back, he feels good, whole again, Dimitri’s scent smells like home and his eyes burn, his lower lip quivers.

“Hey,” Dimitri murmurs, his hand cups his chin so their face align. “What’s the matter?”

Claude lets the tears run, no ashamed of them. “You’ve always been there.” His voice trembles.

“Yes, I’ve always watched your back.”

“And I didn’t know.” He sobs. How could he have missed that? How couldn’t he feel something so important?

“No, you never were supposed to.” Dimitri caresses his hair and drops a kiss on the top of his head. “Now sleep Claude. You’re emotionally exhausted.”

Claude cries himself to sleep; Dimitri, in the meanwhile, holds his hand when his eyes close, and hushes him goodnight.

* * *

Claude wakes up in an empty bed.

The birds are singing outside and there’s even a ray of sunshine coming through the window, Dimitri must have opened it before leaving. He knows he’s not far, he can feel him, but the brightness from the outworld tells him his powers are slowly coming back, and that if they indeed did during the night and his time of rest, they could be very well powerful enough to deprive him of the sight of his Shadow, of Dimitri’s face forever, and Claude suddenly feels submerged by a wave of anxiety only his eyes could answer to. He gets up and lets Dimitri’s coat fall on the floor and opens the door; if it is as bright as midday around the small cabin they occupy, the same cannot be said for the woods around, and Claude’s sight darkens perhaps fifty metres away. His powers have yet to be restored to their previous glory, and somehow there’s a part of his heart that is thankful of the knowledge.

His steps lead him to the tarn where Dimitri is currently resting. On the side he disposed of his armour and under clothes, his weapons and eye patch. Claude watches his back and the huge scar the boar inflicted because of his carelessness. He kneels just behind him; Dimitri hair is down and he never thought it was this long, reaching his collarbones.

“Hey.”

Dimitri keeps his eye close. He’s soaking in the cold water calmly, he looks asleep but Claude knows he’s not, somehow.

“You slept well?” Dimitri asks.

Claude smiles, he doesn’t know why – he missed him, missed his voice. “Sort of. I was cold.”

Dimitri’s back is full of scars, some recent, most old; there’s still dried blood and fibres of his clothes sticking on his open wound. At least, the bleeding has stopped.

“Let me clean this for you.”

Dimitri opens his eye. “That won’t be necessary.”

“I insist.” Claude saw the moment he arrived that Dimitri has taken a soap and sponge that were in the cabin, or that he always had with him. The sponge wet, he impregnates it with the soap and rubs on Dimitri’s unharmed shoulder first. Dimitri flinches.

“It’s okay. Try to relax.” For the first five minutes perhaps Claude is distraught by the sight of Dimitri’s back contracting against his care, his shoulders tensing with his brushes, and he wonders when was the last time Dimitri let anyone take care of him like that.

When has he last seen someone? When was the last time he could talk to a man, or God? Claude’s light sentences him to an eternal life of solitude, danger and violence; his back and his uneasiness are enough proof of it. Perhaps he hates him. Perhaps he hates him so much his touch repulses him.

His hair is dirty too. Claude puts the sponge aside and raises his hand in his blond locks. “Can I?”

If he does, hate him, he doesn’t say, nor refuses his touch, hasn’t done for a while now. Claude massages his skull and make sure every brand of hair gets washed, before tiding up the whole with the lace Dimitri left beside him in a high bun. He can see them better now, the scars; his forefinger runs on the small ones, simple cuts that never got too deep, probably only bled for a second, perhaps he didn’t even feel them in the heat of combat.

Dimitri flinches again, “Claude, stop it.” He groans, he must have felt his power erasing them, why does he hate to be healed?

“I feel responsible.”

“You are.”

“So let me heal you.” Claude demands, and his palm stops on the large scar, the newest one, which scared him the most. “I cannot stand them. The sight is too painful.”

“I don’t feel any pain, not anymore; your powers aren’t healing anyone but yourself.”

Yet he doesn’t move, doesn’t get out of the tarn, never pushes him away. He’s so different from last night and yet Claude feels the same recomforting aura coming from him; he’s solid, he’s here, Claude can touch him and he doesn’t dissolved with the rising sun. He’ll protect him, has always had. He’s here, solid, he’s real.

Claude rests his head on top of his. “You know me well, don’t you?”

Dimitri puffs, a vain attempt to hide a laugh. Claude smiles again.

“I can see right thought you.” He says, turning his face toward Claude as to prove a point. Claude sees it then for the first time, the scar on his eye, his fingers reach without thinking but as soon as they move, Dimitri shoves his head to the opposite direction. “No. Don’t. Not this one.”

“Why?” Claude is intrigued, and curious as he is there’s no secret that can resist him. When he realizes Dimitri isn’t going to reply, he undresses quickly and jumps in the tarn, cornering him with his arms around his waist. That way, he can’t escape.

“Why this one in particular?” And he tries not to see all the other ones he has missed, the giant cross on his right breast – and that blue cross on his armour isn’t just a whim of bad fashion in the end – and concentrates on his face and right eye.

Dimitri looks away, not with shame or embarrassment, but something like sorrow, and Claude feels bad for having overpassed his boundaries once more; if Dimitri pretends he knows him like the back of his hand and has proven his words to be closed to the truth, the same cannot be said for Claude, and a vague impression of having felt his presence by his side all along cannot replace years of watching, of conversation, of experience and partnership.

“Does it mean something to you?” Claude asks nonetheless, because Dimitri isn’t moving, not yet, he’s close to the border but he lets him flirt with this line.

“Everything…it means everything to me.”

Claude looks down on his neck and collarbones where he saw a scar, feigning to be satisfied by such an evasive answer and proceeds his earlier work. Dimitri’s body is just like his words and armour, it’s harsh, it’s massive, it’s imposing yet so familiar. “I see.” His finger traces a line between his two collarbone and runs on the left one until it reaches his shoulder. There’s no wound here and they both know it, yet Claude can’t quite explain, but his finger moves on his own.

“You don’t I’m afraid.”

“Then tell me.” He takes a step closer, perhaps a bit too much, but there’s nothing that excites him more than being told a story, a secret, and his heart beats so fast in his chest it warms him, exactly as Dimitri’s coat used to the first time. And if he’s distracted for a second by some of Dimitri’s hair escaping from the bun and falling along his neck again, his eyes soon find Dimitri’s again, his unique bright blue eye that contrast so much with the rest of his attire, of his face and attitude. It’s so pretty, opened and full of hope at times, and Claude always considers eyes to be the window of the soul, more than words and acts that could be so well twisted into the truth so many people want to see. The eye, like the heart, can’t lie, and not to him.

Claude runs his hand on his face. His thumb caresses the birth of the scar underneath his eye, the way Dimitri stares back takes his breath away.

“It’s a reminder of who I am. A beast, a monster.” He says coldly.

“Who did that to you?”

“It is of no importance.” He takes the hand off his face. “But it was during the night I was denied the right to be treated with such kindness, or looked at the way you do, Claude. I’m not a man, nor God; I’m a Shadow, and your light is too bright for us to coexist.”

Claude lets his arm fall on his side, and watches Dimitri exits the tarn, his eyes on his backside and thighs, covered with scars he’ll never be able to heal.

They depart soon after for their next destination. If Claude feels more confident about his ability to defend himself, he fears his power might unable Dimitri to do as much.

“As long as I can wield this lance, you have nothing to fear. I’ll have your back.” He reassures him, and gives him the bow and rusted axe.

They walk West and exit the forest to an open field of wheat and hemp, and Claude rejoices at the sight of living creatures they pass by, even if they must be mere cows.

“With your light back, the world slowly takes back the sight you knew, but it hasn’t changed.” Dimitri tells him. “They are just the same creatures without their shadows.”

Claude halts, horrified, “You mean, the demon boar-“

“Just an animal like you and me, but in a world of darkness.”

So this is how the world would look like without him.

“And demons? Humans?”

“Humans who worship you have your protection, those who don’t end up transforming into beast, or make a pack with the devil,” Dimitri stares at him, “The one who wants your head and stole your horns.”

Claude doesn’t dare to speak until their next stop. They encounter no threat in their way, and if Dimitri once or twice scolds him for getting ahead and patting small animals, and thus getting too far to be protected from an enemy, he doesn’t sound angry when he speaks, and Claude is way too happy to rush back to his side, thinking that all of this is highly unnecessary since he’s got some of his light back, and chose to see in Dimitri’s caprice a sign that he feels uncomfortable to have him physical away for too long, as the same fate hits Claude constantly. Sometime their hands would brush past each other and his fingertips would burn, and Claude aches to grab Dimitri’s – but he’s always refused, each of his tries closed on emptiness.

On top of a hill they see a village, the first trace of human existence since Claude fell on Fódlan. He can’t help to cry his joy, which gets immediately reprimanded by Dimitri. “What on Saint Seiros are you thinking?! Do you want Those Who Slither In The Dark to find us so soon? We’re still far from the Monastery.”

And Claude has indeed recognizes the place, they are walking on Alliance territory along Faerghus’s border. But Dimitri is wrong, the Monastery is just a couple of days away. Their journey will soon be over, one way or another. And in the end no matter what happen, Claude will never see him again, won’t he?

And he knows Dimitri will always be here, but it’s not the same, he will never be the same anymore. Somehow, as Dimitri said, it would have been easier if he had never found out about his existence at all.

Dimitri suggests they walk around the village for more effectiveness but as always, Claude has the last word, at least his puppy eyes won. He’s just overexcited to see people, alive and well, even in those dark times.

He is soon recognized by the villagers, and most run to him and halt just before they can give him a hug – a mixture of being relieved to see Him, at long last, when he had disappeared for so long, and of the respect due to his Holiness – but some, Claude realises, stand far from him, or rather from _them_. The old ones, especially, look at Dimitri with something like fear and hatred in their eyes.

Nonetheless they are brought to the village’s major who tells them about the misadventure they have been plunge into since Claude lost his horns.

“We felt, as soon as night came so suddenly, that something was wrong. Most barricade themselves in their house and only dare to get out at night under the moon light. Hopefully we weren’t attacked, but some of us went out in the woods, and never came back.”

“How long as it been? A day? A week?” Claude asks.

“Alas we cannot say.” The major replies, just as them, without their sun they have lost the track of time.

Dimitri sits in front of the entrance door the entire time, guarding it with Areadbhar. Folks walk by him, some curious kids adventure themselves close enough to touch his coat, but run away quickly when he gazes harshly at them, or groans when his stare isn’t enough to scare them.

One man stands in the way. An artist, he realizes, a painter. There are all kind of brushes around his waist where Dimitri hides his blades. To each their own weapons.

Dimitri knocks on the door, interrupting the major’s tale. The artist wanted a word with them. As Dimitri closes the door behind, the artist walks to Claude where he kneels, his hat on his heart.

“My name is Ignaz. I have been a devote to the Goddess and Her children since the day I was able to hold a pencil, and my devotion never left me ever since. The sight of you, so well, is a sign of the Heavens that this nightmare is soon to end, or I am no painter myself.”

“I am mostly glad about your praises, but no need to kneel, I’m afraid I am not worth this much adoration without the horns that hold most of my light.”

“So this is why you’re going to Garreg Mach. You think they must keep them here.” The major says.

Claude nods, “This is what Dimitri thinks at least.”

“Dimitri? Is it the… _thing_ , waiting for you outside?” the major asks.

Thing? “He’s my,” how can he say, “Companion. He’s been protecting me since,” then again, better not share too many details, “I lost my powers.”

“You should be careful, Golden Deer, for this is not a man but a monster disguised as one.” The major warns him. Claude tries to remain composed, his face shows surprise but his fists curl with rage. “His furry and bloodlust are the subject of legends that have been passed through generation all around Fódlan, and everywhere he goes he leaves behind him a pool of dark blood.”

“Dark blood?”

“Demon’s blood.” Ignaz explains.

“It butchers them, every night, and our ancestors feared their saviour just as much as the beasts he killed.”

“He’s well known as The Boar.” Ignaz adds, “At least it is how the artists of ancient time called him, and painted him.”

“ _It_ , Ignaz,” the major corrects him still, Claude is this close to throw a punch at him, “This is not a human, it’s only a demon that betrayed its fellows, it’s even worse than them. Which is why I wonder why it would be with you, your Holiness, and I must beg you to get rid of such a nuisance. No one can know how harmful it can be and we feared for your safety more than anything.”

“Be reassured, Dimitri will never harm me, or any of you. Ignaz, right?” Claude turns to the artist, finding in him a possible ally, as it has called Dimitri with a suitable pronoun, “Have you ever seen a painting where Dimitri harms a human live?”

“Never, your Holiness.”

“Or a Sun God, like me?”

“Again, I haven’t.”

Claude turns to the major, not resisting to smile when he shouldn’t have, perhaps, “See, we’re all safe. You have my word.”

But his words, even from someone the humans respect so much, cannot erase centuries of fears and believes, and as the major asks, when night eventually falls and Claude’s light vanishes to let its place to the moon, that they stay a night longer to ease the villager’s anguish, he refuses to let Dimitri inside his own house where Claude would be having a bed. He’s not even welcomed around his table, and hopefully Claude isn’t hungry, and politely declines their invitation.

He finds Dimitri guarding the front door. Around him, people avoids him and walk drawing an invisible circle, a safe distance; and perhaps Claude should be wiser and consider what the humans told him, because in the end he never saw Dimitri before today, and what he had done, or how, is still a complete mystery to him. Yet, as he sees him now, he doubts it will have a huge impact of what he feels towards him. Spending all this time alone, without him, his Shadow, his other half had been nothing but agony, and enduring the harsh accusation of a mere stranger on someone he esteems so much broke his heart all the more than he couldn’t do anything to defend him.

Claude sits next to him, bringing his portion. “Want a bite?”

“Not hungry.” He groans.

“You’re back at that.” Dimitri raises an eyebrow. “Talking like you’re truly a beast. The major says you’re a demon dressing like a human, but I think it’s the exact opposite. You’re hiding your own humanity under this thick coat, to protect yourself. From what though? Me?” Dimitri turns his head and looks ahead, to the fire camp he set for him. “Yourself? Perhaps who you used to be, someone from your past that still haunts you.”

“Be quiet.” Dimitri mutters.

“Ah, I’m hitting home, I think. I might not, _know_ you, as you do know me but my body and mind have those sort of intuition with you,” Claude explains, and he sees how Dimitri grasps on his lance, containing his anger, “As if our brain have cohabited for so long I’ve mastered the pattern your thoughts often take, even unconsciously, and pardon me but I think you’re wrong, so wrong Dimitri.”

“Would you please shut up and go back inside? Leave me alone.”

“But I’ve told you, already, I cannot do that; and I am quite distraught you have the strength to shove me away when every breath I take away from you cost me so much.”

Dimitri uncrosses his legs, he’s about to get up when Claude holds his coat. “No, Dimitri, don’t leave, I beg you.”

“You’re a child, a spoiled brat. It’s as if you have walked with a crutch all your life when both your legs are valid. You’ll manage well without me, you just have to find how, and you’ll be better, believe me. You don’t need a monster like me.”

“You’re not a crutch, nor a monster. You’re my Shadow. You’re a part of me.”

“Of course I’m not!” Dimitri pushes his arm away, and the desperate strength he put in the gesture frightens Claude, for a time; what if he had crossed the border and broke Dimitri’s limit? What if he spoke of something he had no idea of, and hurt him instead of smoothing his heart? “I saw you, the day you were born. You were already so bright and perfect, and you shone so much. I was attached to you as a punishment for my crimes, and not because you needed protection. And, see? I’m not even worth protecting you, you lost your horns anyway!”

He walks away, “Dimitri, wait!” Claude runs after him, his arms embracing his back. Dimitri stops dead, allowing Claude to rest his head on his coat. “How can you be so insensitive, and about yourself?! I won’t tolerate such words. And you’re wrong again, and so much, to think you have no impact on my person. I’ve grown up with you, around the shape of you even if I didn’t know you were there the entire time; your presence wasn’t nothing to me, I can finally understand now that we are separated how much you mean to me. I want to stay with you, always, and I feared more than anything the moment we’ll have to be apart again.”

Dimitri takes a loud breath, then another. He puts his hand gently around his wrist. “We’ll never be separated, not as long as I live.” He tells him.

“But we’ll never be like this again, right?” Claude speaks weakly, he doesn’t know how but silent tears are running on his cheek. “When I’ll get back my horns, I will never see you, ever again. I will never hold you like I do now. I’ll never feel your breath against my neck when we sleep, only you will.”

And it’s probably a bit too late for Claude to realize there’s something more than just a deep affection for a silent soldier that has been protecting him since the day he was born hidden in his words, and that perhaps he isn’t supposed to like the shade of his blue eye so much; or that the urgent need to have Dimitri close and to breathe his scent isn’t motivated by the sudden loss of a constant presence at his side, but rather by the immediate satisfaction this act alone provokes. His cheeks heat up with this gentle realisation.

He has never been alone, he has known Dimitri for so long, and he likes him, yes, he likes him, since he doesn’t dare to confess more, for the word scares him more than a horde of demons hunting him down.

A villager walks past them, forcing their short hug to resume. Claude’s sniffing makes Dimitri turn around on the spot. “Claude.” His gauntleted hand cups his cheek, he can’t help but lean on the touch, even if it’s cold, even if it’s harsh. “What’s the matter?”

Claude turns his head away, he cannot show this much weakness, not when he doesn’t know what to do with this new finding. He hopes, somehow, that after all this time Dimitri is bad at reading his mind.

“Golder Deer, and Dimitri, is that it?” Ignaz approaches them, politely ignoring Claude’s tears that he’s brushing away with the hem of his tunic. “I might think you’d like to go to my place. I actually have some paintings I’d like to show you, and that I think will excite your curiosity.”

There’s nothing that can make Claude forget about his sudden sadness better than the joy of discovering something, anything, be it art or any knowledge that has been hidden from him, even coming from the human race; and he doesn’t ask for Dimitri’s opinion but knows, without them exchanging words, that he would follow, like his shadow, because it is what he has always done in the end, hasn’t he?

To his demise the paintings Ignaz seems so keen on sharing aren’t for his eyes to see. The painter takes Dimitri to an old and dark room; Claude watches them from the distance and even spots Dimitri brushing a spiderweb away with the back of his hand. This is so unfortunate; the older a room is, the best secret it conceals, and Claude would hate to be left in the dark of such wonders that lay at arm’s reach.

“If he ever let you in, I think you’ll understand why I brought him in first,” Ignaz gives him a cup of tea, Claude refuses some sugar. “It is quite surprising to see both of you traveling together. May I ask the reason of your partnership?”

“I’m afraid it has to be left unknown to your kind. Do you happen to have camomile?” Claude finds himself asking, and for a second only he wonders why the words escaped his lips.

“I might actually. Wait for me.”

Claude watches him go to the kitchen, and his eyes remain where his silhouette has disappeared from his sight for a while. Dimitri still hasn’t returned from the dark room. He takes a slip of his tea and wanders in the Antechamber where Ignaz made them wait before they’d go to sleep. There are portraits on all walls, mostly done by their host, mostly of a certain girl the artist must adore, which smile is enough to enlighten the room, better than any candlelight could ever do.

Ignaz takes too long to come back and Claude might be tempted to think it is deliberate; he’s giving Dimitri time, giving _them_ time, to come at peace with whatever is hiding in the dark room Dimitri disappeared into for so long. Claude risks a step closer, his hand on the doorframe. “Dimitri?” He’s in the back of the room, Claude can easily see him since he’s caring Areadbhar. “May I?”

When he isn’t answered Claude comes in, his steps loud enough to be heard and reprimanded, but it is as if Dimitri has suddenly gone deaf, or that all his fifth senses concentrated in his eye, focus on the sight Ignaz gives him.

And Claude walks slower when he sees it, too. He understands why, now, Dimitri had to go alone.

“You’re beautiful.” He whispers, to Dimitri, and to him as well.

It’s a portrait of Dimitri that captured such a vulnerable feeling, his expression is so soft, almost loving, and Claude wonders what Dimitri has been staring at when this moment was captured by the artist’s retina, and would give anything to have been the object of his religious attention. It’s unfortunately not Ignaz who has painted it for he would have recognized the style, but the last name is familiar. One of his parents, perhaps.

Dimitri speaks after a while, when none of them have been able to stare at anything else but Dimitri’s portrait. “Let’s get out of here.” He turns his heels and walks away.

“Hey, wait!” Claude runs behind, taken by surprise by the sudden change in rhythm, and as they walk past them Areadbhar enlightens the rest of the paintings that are put haphazardly against the walls and he halts. They are all painting of Dimitri, or Claude at least think, of someone, _something_ Dimitri has been.

“Claude! Come on. Don’t linger here.” Dimitri urges him, worry easily hearable in his voice, scared of what Claude might find if he stays there too long. But it’s too late, Claude has seen enough to be curious and once it’s done, nothing can stop him from looking further.

And now, the first painting he saw when entering the room makes sense, at last. But is it really true? Is it reality, of something deformed by the hand of a painter?

Is _this_ really Dimitri?

The form he distinguishes in the middle of a forest, holding the unmistakable lance, has more of the boar Claude’s stabbed a day ago than the man standing presently behind him. It’s nothing but a form, vague and imprecise, dark and foggy, with a single red eye sending daggers to whoever had the misfortune to stand in its way. There is absolutely nothing that permits Claude to affirm that this thing has been human in form, or had the shape of it at first glance, but if he pays a bit more attention he can see the shadow of Dimitri’s coat on the ground and the blue cross on his torso. It is, truly, Dimitri, if not who else, but at the same time it isn’t. It’s a demon, not his Shadow yet.

Claude looks to the end of the painting; there’s a name and a date. It was painted almost 400 years ago.

“Oh, I see you’ve made yourself comfortable in here.”

Claude jumps, Ignaz’s prompt arrival surprised him, or perhaps he has been here for a while and he didn’t notice, for how captivated he was with this new finding. He holds Dimitri by the wrist before he can surges on him and let his anger express itself with a fist the painter certainly doesn’t deserve.

Ignaz approaches them with a lamp, “My grandfather has always been obsessed with you, Dimitri, after you saved his life from demons so many years ago. He looked for you everywhere he could, in books and art. He was very dear to me and taught me how to paint. I would always be grateful of what you did for us.”

“Is he the one who painted the last one? Dimitri’s portrait?” Claude asks. “The style is close to yours, but not quite.”

“I’m glad you’ve noticed!” Ignaz seems glad of the comparison and offers them a bright smile. “He is. It is one of his fond memories, the day he finally was able to see you.”

Behind them Dimitri remains silent. He doesn’t even dare to look at them, or the painting.

“This is the first one my grandfather found.” He says, speaking of the first painting. “Its title is ‘A Boar’, this is where your hideous surname comes from.”

“It’s not hideous.” Dimitri groans, “It’s faithful.”

“Let’s ignore him.” Claude says softly. “Please, continue your story Ignaz, I’m all ears.”

Against the wall there are a dozen of paintings of him, of Dimitri. All are from different times and artists, and Ignaz’s grandfather, as a great admirer, had sorted them chronologically. “It has more meaning when you do it that way,” Ignaz says and when Claude stands a bit further, he understands what he means by that.

It’s the transformation. Little by little, the foggy lines drawing Dimitri’s silhouette get cleaner, his hair finds golden locks, his eye its blue. Which each passing years and centuries Dimitri morphed, evolved, and if he had been a beast before it is not the case, not anymore.

“My grandfather had a theory, an interesting theory. You’ll tell me if he were wrong, but he thought you were sent to Earth to pay a dept, and that each years you spent protecting us, each life you saved brought you closer to fulfilling your promised, and that you’d win back your humanity eventually when the Gods would decide you paid enough for your crimes. Is it true, then?” Ignaz asks this of Claude. “Are you here to free him from his horrible fate?”

Horrible fate, hn? To be his shadow, to always live in the darkness, to be erase, utterly, just bit a mere glance of him?

“He’s not.” Dimitri ends the conversation as he exists the room and shuts the door behind him. Claude doesn’t look back. His eyes are on the paintings.

“Can I stay here a little longer?” He demands. Ignaz gives him his lamp, making him promised to be careful with the light.

“Oh, and I’ll put your camomile here in case you want it.” He says before leaving.

“That’s not for me.” Claude tells him; he turns around. “That’s for him.”

Ignaz nods and takes back the cup upstairs, where their room waits for Claude, and so is Dimitri.

But Claude takes his time. He studies all the paintings one by one, his eyes focus on Dimitri and his shapes, the form of his eye, its colour, the blue changing each time and it could very well be just a difference in style, someone clever once told him that there were more than one truth to the eyes, or else every paintings would look the same, but Claude likes to think it’s not. It gets brighter each time, with the years. It gets lively. It turns into Dimitri.

And then there’s the last one, painted thirty years ago only and it truly looks like him. It’s the one Claude admires the most before joining the man pictured on it upstairs. It’s Dimitri and yet he has never seen him like this. He’s not, happy, per see, he’s not smiling either but there’s really something different on his face and Claude can’t go before he finds out what. Is it his eye? His lips? His jaw? The way his hair falls around his face?

No, it’s something else, it’s his mind, it’s his heart, Claude realizes. The pain, the sadness, the anger; it’s gone.

“It’s my light, isn’t it?”

Dimitri doesn’t look back at him. On the bed table, the teacup is empty.

“It’s my power that turns you back to what you were before. A protector. You are not a demon, Dimitri.”

“It’s not.” He’s replied.

“Dimitri,” Claude rushes to him, his hand on his shoulder. He’s got his armour off, his coat rests on a chair. There are two small beds, but Claude feels like sharing his once again. “Please.”

“What do you want?!” Dimitri roars, and his eye shots red for only a second before coming back to his formal blue.

Claude caresses his shoulder; his hand runs on his arm and halts on his elbow. He holds it, not tightly, just to show he’s here, that he’ll stay whatever happens, but that he can also walk away if he’s unwanted. “You need to stop hating yourself, for what you did, whatever it is.”

Dimitri looks away. Claude catches his chin, “Dimitri.” He forces their eyes to meet, his thumb is so close to his lower lip; and for a second only Claude is staring back at the painting a ground below, for a second only he thinks he recognizes Dimitri’s expression, the emotion he so rarely displays on his face, and it colours his cheeks with a kind of joy he has never experienced and before he knows what he’s doing, Claude has closed his eyes and he’s leaning in.

He has no real idea of what he wanted to achieve that way. It’s been a couple of years since he last kissed anyone, and he’s kissed many, yet this feels like the first time.

Or it could have if Dimitri hadn’t retreated and got up from the bed. His face his crimson red. “Have you lost your mind? What…were you…!” He groans, before leaving the room in a hurry.

Claude sits on the bed for hours, gazing through the window, his eyes set on nothing in particular but his thoughts wondering, just like Dimitri, why on Saint Seiros he did this.

Dimitri spent the night staring at a painting of a man he doesn’t recognize, a man without anger and pain and sadness, surrounded by the darkness he loves so much.

The next day they must leave, eventually. Ignaz prepared them some tea leaves and biscuits for the road, which Claude accepts, not finding the heart to tell him they won’t be necessary. But there’s something he kind of wants, and he’s glad Dimitri is not here to hear the request.

“You want my grandfather’s painting?” Ignaz exclaims.

“I know it’s a lot to ask of you, considering what he meant to you-“

“It would be my greatest pleasure! I am sure that if my grandfather had known you two were friends, he would have loved you to have it. I’ll be sure to offer it on my next offering.”

“Offering?” Do they still do that sort of thing?

Apparently yes, they do, lots of, food and gold and jewels. Oh, Claude can’t wait to have a talk with Aunt Judith.

Ignaz accompanies them to the village’s entrance. Dimitri walks ahead and the silent is so heavy Claude dares not to speak.

“Golden Deer, I have an even better idea.” Ignaz says so suddenly. “Let me paint you both, together!”

Dimitri halts on the spot, Claude hits his back.

“It would be my honour to immortalize your passage here. In these times of darkness, your presence has truly been a blessing, Your Holiness, and to see my grandfather’s savour is nothing but another sign from the Goddess herself.”

“That would,” His light won’t make a painting vanish. If he could have one of them together, Claude would stare at it, always, in memories of those times. “Be quite nice indeed.”

“We don’t have time for that.”

“Oh, be reassured, you won’t need to stay. I have saved everything in there.” Ignaz points at his head with a bright smile. “You are just impossible to forget.”

The possibility of such a scenario doesn’t leave Claude’s mind while they travel, the day bright and the sky cloudless; it occults the heavy tension on both their shoulders for a moment, and it’s not before Dimitri takes his wrist and pulls him closer to him that Claude realizes they haven’t talked at all since they left the village.

“Stay close to me.” Dimitri says quietly.

He doesn’t seem on edge anymore, or angry, for what it’s worth. It strikes him, now only, he doesn’t know why; Claude tried to kiss him. He had wanted to, very dearly, and the will is not entirely gone.

But who wouldn’t? A handsome blond knight, a heart cold as ice, a past full of mysteries, the brightest blue eye he’s ever seen, a man loyal to him since the day he was born; how much more would it need for his heart to be moved?

“Always.” Claude replies, and buries his head against his coat. He sighs when Dimitri drops his wrist.

* * *

The remaining trip to the Monastery enlightens Claude about some truth, ugly at times, about life, love and himself, as it shoves into his heart a roller-coaster of emotions and antinomic findings; because due to necessity, as Dimitri reminded him they are getting closer to their goal and thus closer to deadly enemies, they take turn in the watches and never sleep together. Claude barely feels tired anymore but he guesses Dimitri, under such light, has some trouble to keep up the pace, and even if he still asks of Claude to never leave his side in case an enemy strikes, Claude is now sure Dimitri can barely hold Areadbhar in his hands, and that he’ll need to be rescued more than Claude needs protection. It is perhaps a matter of pride or duty, and Claude respects that greatly; and so he watches over him when Dimitri sleeps and when he’s awake, Claude does such as well, but tries to be discreet about it.

And after a couple of rotations he finds out Dimitri has been right, all along; of course he’s not a crutch, but Claude does not _need_ him, to sleep, to breath, to feel good and himself. It is as he said, a habit he was fond of and would have liked to keep going, but nowhere was it a necessity of his existence, and Claude is mortified by the finding, and to have been wrong more than feeling the loss of Dimitri’s warmth at night against his back. From that comes the second finding, that links with his outburst they still need to address – or at least, Claude needs to explain himself – and that consists in a simple truth. If he doesn’t need him, by his side, all the time, Claude wants to be with Dimitri; and perhaps it is not much – a nuance some might say – but for Claude, it changes everything. Dimitri has never been a part of him that had been brutally torn apart from his being , but another soul he has been bound to, and they can coexist and exist separately but Claude requires the proximity, whatever it is, and if he were honest with himself – but that is too soon for him, perhaps later, if time is gentle with them – Claude would know which configuration he likes better, which one he would love to go with all the time, the presence he craves for.

They’re perhaps half a day away from their goal, and is it Garreg Mach they see, this little dot high on top of the hill?

Claude knows it is, because he feels them, his horns, they are resting in this place and they are calling for him, asking for his head. They send him vision of their captivity, for they have a soul on their own, and his old powers run in his veins. The bow he has been holding this whole time shines with gold, his body is wrapped by light, so much Dimitri has to take a step back and cover his eye. When he opens it again, Claude is a new man, the Golden Deer the humans adore, wearing former golden attire and the arc of a God, Failnaught.

“So?” Claude beams, he feels at ease now, so much more than before – his turban around his hair is just waiting for his horns to come back. “How do I look?”

Dimitri squints his eye; Claude fears it might be too difficult to stare at him now. “Amazing.” He says, nonetheless, and it’s enough to make him smile.

He can feel the light in the palm of his hands, it runs under his skin; and for a moment he’s scared, again, that staring at Dimitri would dig holes on his armour, or hurt him, and that he might never tell; or more selfishly Claude fears above all else that his eyes would make him disappear, and that they will never see each other again – he doesn’t want that, not so soon at least, and perhaps when they'll have beaten the bad guys, Claude can keep the horns here and they can stay together like this, he can perhaps shine a bit less bright for one day, if it means he can spend this time with Dimitri, before they part forever.

“When wasn’t I?” He jokes, but his smile soon vanishes when his fear materializes, as Dimitri cannot look at anything but the ground, and his arms hold on his lance to keep standing on his legs. The light makes him weak, and while Dimitri has been strong enough to hold him when Claude first landed on Fódlan, Claude is sure he won’t be able to repay this kindness without hurting Dimitri even more.

“Walk behind me.” Claude tells him, he turns his back to him, he can’t hurt him, he can’t watch him be so strong for him. “It’s my turn to protect you.”

Dimitri is too weak to complain.

In the end Claude can’t decide if, as they walk even slower and their journey extends, Dimitri’s worsen condition is a curse or a blessing, because if they get more opportunity to be together, talk and feel the other’s presence, even from a couple of feet away, the fact that Dimitri is purposely hiding any pain he might feel not to hurt Claude’s heart is harrowing, and it silences Claude’s resolve to share the secret of his affection that is, perhaps, not as much as a secret as Claude would have liked to. And every step that brings him closer to his dear horns he adores so much also takes him away from the man he, possibly, likes, loves even, perhaps.

He never wants this journey to end. But Fódlan can’t never live in such a chaotic world where Darkness takes control and demons run in the field, and Claude has a duty that needs to be fulfil, so has Dimitri.

They walk in silence. But both their head are full of the same kind of thoughts.

They arrived in an abandoned village. Houses are broken, savaged, sacked.

“Demons are powerful near the Monastery. Humans had not a single chance.” Dimitri grasps his shoulder, for a few seconds only before it burns him. “We cannot save everyone. Please, we need to hurry before more harm occurs while you’re not enlightening the lands.”

How twisted that his own wish, his selfish wish would cause, if it were to be realized, such a tragedy on Fódlan.

“Look, over here! There’s one person alive!” Claude sees against the well a young girl laying on the ground, her hand covered with blood and her clothes dirtied with mud. Her deep red hair, set in his buns on each side of her head, are yet untouched, but Claude doesn’t notice – only Dimitri does.

“Claude, wait-”

“Hey you.” Claude kneels next to her, the girl groans. “Are you alright? What’s your name?”

“I’m…fine. The name is Monica. Can you…help me stand?”

Claude offers her his hand. Dimitri rushes to them.

“Claude, be careful, I don’t like this.”

“What? Why?” Claude drops her hand and turns to him in reflex, it has been so long since he hasn’t stared at his face after all, a single moment, a mere second should do, right? Just a glimpse, to go for the day, Goddess he has missed it, he missed him so much already, how awful is his future going to be when they-

“Claude!”

Pain strikes his back. Hot, golden blood runs on his clothes and down the ground. Behind him, Monica just stabbed him to death. Claude is dying, he knows this for certain, life escapes his body and flees to the Heavens, and to think such a small knife, a short moment of inattention is all it took to claim his life, and now Fódlan is doomed to stay in the dark until the end of ti-

“Demons are powerful near the Monastery. Humans had not a single chance.” Dimitri grasps his shoulder, for a few seconds only before it burns him. “We cannot save everyone. Please, we need to hurry before more harm occurs while you’re not enlightening the lands.”

How twisted that his own wish, his selfish wish would cause, if it were to be realized, such a Tragedy on Fódlan.

“Look, over here! There’s one person alive!” Claude sees against the well a young girl laying on the ground, his hand covered with blood and her clothes dirtied with mud. Her deep red hair, set in his buns on each side of her head, are yet untouched, but Claude doesn’t notice – only Dimitri does.

“Claude, wait.”

“Hey you.” Claude kneels next to her, the girl groans. “Are you alright? What’s your name?”

“I’m…fine. The name is Monica. Can you…help me stand?”

Claude offers her his hand. Dimitri rushes to them.

“Claude, move!”

“What? Why?” Claude drops her hand and turns to him in reflex, but he’s shoved to the side by Dimitri’s hip and falls on the ground. In front of him the most horrible sight awaits his eyes, as Dimitri slayed the poor girl’s in the stomach while she stabbed him right in the heart.

“No! Dimitri!”

Both fall on the ground, dark blood folding from their respective wound. Claude rushes to Dimitri’s side. The girl, Monica, is dead, but Dimitri still breathes. “Oh, no, no, not this, please.” He coughs blood, black runs from the corner of his lips to his chin, the same colour as his armour. “Dimitri, tell me, how can I help?”

And in this instant of pure panic Claude forgets how much his light damages him more than anything, more than the cut he’s just suffered for him – he protected him, always, has always have, will always do, please – and it’s not after he caresses his face perhaps a hundred time and whispers his name, hoping it would make the pain go away, that Claude remembers Dimitri needs darkness to recover. He takes him by the shoulders and grabs him inside an unoccupied house.

“No…need…I’m dying.” Dimitri groans.

“No you don’t. I forbade you.”

“I’m afraid you cannot do anything about it, Claude, not anymore.” He spits more blood, Claude’s heart winces. “It was always bound to happen this way. There is no other end for me than to die in your place.”

“No, it must not be. Why would it?! Don’t leave me alone, Dimitri; you told me to always stay by your side, how am I supposed to do so if you die?” And Claude seems to realize the awful fate of his friend as tears fall on his tired face. “Who will protect me from the darkness if you’re not here to have my back?”

The words make Dimitri’s smile, even if just bitterly, it’s a rare sight Claude would have killed hundred demons to see more often. “Look at you. You don’t need protection. You’re perfect like this. Flawless.”

“This is a lie.” Perhaps a sweet lie to make his demise more bearable, to know that if he leaves Claude behind, at least, he’d be capable enough to protect himself on his own. “A lie, you hear me? I was only good because you were always standing behind me. I am not half the man I can be without you by my side, Dimitri.”

“Well, we’ll have to let time and fate decide of that, I’m afraid.” Dimitri closes his eye, which leaves Claude in a state of utter panic. He shakes his shoulders.

“No, Dimitri! Do I need to get away? Am I hurting you?”

Claude stands up, takes a step back but Dimitri grasps his ankle in extremis. “No! Please, don’t go. I’ve spent my whole life alone, in the Darkness, at least permit that my last moments are spent with someone, and bathed in your light.”

Claude’s sight is blurry from tears, but he’s sure Dimitri stares his way. He cannot go, he cannot deceived him, on his last wish. “Okay then. Okay, I’ll stay.” And he takes his face into his hands and rests his forehead on his. Claude breathes in his scent, tainted with the one of his fresh blood, it’s not the one he’d have liked to remember but it’ll do, anything will do, every blond hair he’ll see will remind him of his, every blue eyes on him will look so dull next to his.

“Don’t cry, Claude, don’t cry. It is the end, at long last, of my endless punishment. Now I can be free.”

“Punishment, you said that a lot; since we’ve met you said I was your punishment.” Claude sniffs, he leans on his elbows to look at him in the eye, one last time. “Was I really so terrible to be with?”

“Oh, Claude, no. On the contrary.” Dimitri’s trembling hand cups his chin, and Claude thinks it’s the very first time Dimitri deliberately touches him like this, with care; he can’t look away, can’t say a word, he waits, “If only you knew how much I came to love you.”

There’s a swirl of emotion dancing on Claude’s face, inside his chest, a mix of joy, so deep and sadness, endless, to have found the answer of a question he would never have dared to ask at the worst possible time, to be so closed from the man he loves and adores, but who’s so quickly falling apart, slipping though his fingers like a ray of light. Dimitri is yet solid under him and yet he cannot hold him strong enough to stop him from leaving him, from dying, but Dimitri is solid under him indeed, and he won’t be for long.

“I’m so glad it was you.” He whispers against his ear. “I’m so glad you were my Shadow.”

Dimitri turns his head a bit, his lips brushes past Claude’s cheek. “It was an honour.”

The warmth of his lips, so close from closing forever, works as a permission, an unvoiced ask of attention Claude is so desperate to give him. His hand on Dimitri’s hair, Claude finds them, kisses them, as he should have done long ago. He kisses Dimitri, and cries even more when Dimitri kisses back.

This is just not fair. He wants him to live. He wants him to live forever by his side.

His palm sets on the open wound above his heart. He wants him to live. His lips tickle, so does his hand, light comes out of them. Dimitri kisses him back, he wants him to live.

His work as a Shadow is over, he can let the darkness behind, and come back to him anew, bathed in light, right?

Dimitri gasps, opens his eye wide, “Claude! What are you doing?” But he’s soon silenced by Claude’s mouth again.

“Silence. I need to concentrate.” His hand traces the line the blade left on his skin and just like the scars he healed on his back, Claude closes the wound, he heals him, he pours his light and life into him to keep him alive, to the point of losing his sight for a moment. His head spins, but is it from the situation, the kiss, or his loss of powers, too quick and too wild, or of perhaps a mix of all?

Dimitri still kisses back. He doesn’t taste his blood on his tongue anymore. He’ll live. Claude won’t have it any other way.

They stop kissing when Claude’s arms betray him and he falls on Dimitri’s chest, his body exhausted from this folly of his, this insane bet, that perhaps Dimitri still has some light inside – after all, he is less and less a demon each day that passes, the paintings prove this last night – and that Claude could truly heal him and chase the darkness away. Claude rests his head against his pulse and he holds his breath, he waits, the seconds are too lazy, they take their time to pass and he waits to feel his blood beat against his cheek.

And it does. Of course it does.

Dimitri is as much breathless as he is, his eye staring at the ceiling, unblinking, “What have you done?” he speaks quietly, more than asks because they both know what just happened, what Claude did, on a whim, out of care, out of love.

It’s getting dark outside.

“The words you’re looking for are ‘Thank you’, I think.” Claude barely feels his limbs anymore. He used all his remaining forces to save him, and if he’s so glad it seemed to work, his eyes feel heavy, his heartbeat slows down. He yawns. “And you’re welcome.”

“This was stupid. So stupid of you, Claude. Look at what happened outside, your light is gone.”

Claude can’t see them, but in his voice he hears them, Dimitri’s tears, and he won’t ask for anything else, he’s got his thanks already. “What are you talking about? It’s like the edge of dawn, barely.”

Dimitri sits them up, he holds Claude close to his chest, his hand on his head, he caresses his hair, “Dawn has never been this dull with you.”

It’s the last words he hears before sleep overtakes him.

* * *

It is still dark when Claude arises from this endless nap, but only because the moon has taken his place and the stars are absent; Dimitri hasn’t let go of him one second, Claude feels his hands caressing his side, and his mouth against his forehead had left soft kissing. Claude stirs to show he has awakened.

“Hey.” Claude looks up and tries to catch his eye but Dimitri stares ahead, far ahead, as if there was something behind Claude’s back that requires his entire focus; he knows they are alone, truly alone in this crumbling house where Claude has accomplished a miracle, and it can only be a ghost, or something of the sort that steals Dimitri’s attention, which he craves for so much. “Hey, Dimitri.”

“It was never your light.” He mumbles, his lips move against Claude’s forehead. “After my father died the pain and sorrow transformed me into the monster you’ve seen on those paintings. In memory of the Lion King, the council refused to sentence me to eternal death in Hell, and this is how I ended up as the shadow of the one who will take his place. It was, always, a way to redeem myself for the thing I couldn’t do; as I couldn’t protect my father I was to spend the rest of my life protecting another. But it wasn’t your light that brought me back from the darkness I’ve imprisoned myself into. It was you. It has always been you.”

Dimitri takes his hands and brings them to his lips, kisses his knuckles one by one. Claude has rarely felt this flustered and happy, this warm and simply comfortable, in someone’s else embrace, and it’s only now that he realizes what the things he felt, all those years, behind his back were made off. It wasn’t Dimitri’s in body and shape, it wasn’t his fingertips or his warmth per see, but the one of his heart and soul; it was his love, so universal it crossed the barrier that should have made their meeting impossible.

Overwhelmed by such knowledge, that he has been loved, so much and for so long, so unconditionally, that he was able to move something so deeply that it changes the very core of their being, Claude takes Dimitri’s face in hands and seeks for his lips again, this time without his light, just him and wanting mouth and tongue, his fingers playing with the back of his head, tangled with his blond hair. Dimitri replies with equal ardour, his arm circling the small of his back and bringing their chest together, and if he hasn’t kissed anyone for centuries Claude cannot have tell, for his lips taste like honey and freedom, bliss that can be licked directly from the pot, and soon the taste of his blood is forgotten. When their tongue get tired of dancing together Claude drops short, wet kisses on his lips again and on his chin, his jaw, his neck, and Dimitri lets him do, he holds him closer than their body can handle yet it’s not enough.

They both know it’s not enough.

Claude wants to be one with him as they never did before, wants to feel him under his palms, he wants Dimitri to fill him in his most private place, as many did in the past, but never as good as Dimitri will, Claude somehow is certain of this.

His lips leave Dimitri’s hot skin with want and incomprehension, his eye begging for an explanation as for why he stopped so suddenly something that felt so good, but he remains silent as Claude slowly undoes the button of his vest and puts it down on the floor behind them. He undresses until his chest lays bare and brings Dimitri’s palm on his chest where his heart beats.

None of them knows how fast they got bare, how Dimitri got rid of his armour where blood still stick to his chest, or how Claude felt the coldness of the floor with his bottoms and thighs, they’re both too eager to care; there are words that need to be shared, expressed, but both choose to let their bodies speak for themselves, and perhaps the urgency lies in the fact that it will probably be the only time they can dare to be this adventurous with the other’s body, to discover a forbidden land that will soon disappear, in the Darkness or bathed in light, to enjoy the pleasure of the flesh their hands will never have the chance to feel against their palms again.

Claude sits on Dimitri. He lets him slide in, slowly, until it fills him entirely. He feels like he’s about to burst, and he won’t be surprised if in the sky, humans later will describe something that looked like a solar explosion, or a super nova above their head, for it just describe the pleasure and blissfulness Dimitri provides him. They move carefully at first, slowly even for Claude, his heels behind Dimitri’s back, his arms on his shoulders, his mouth closing on his; he kisses him until he has to let out a sigh, or a moan, later, when Dimitri will thrust into him harsher and faster. He brings Claude down, on his back, he raises his legs and loves him more, until their breathing gets hectic, until Claude cannot even think straight and pearls of sweat run from his forehead. Dimitri is strong and big but he’s gentle when he touches him, in his kisses and affection, he’s never brutal nor impatient, and he touches Claude when he feels himself close to bliss, in a vain attempt to make them come together – it never works, the timing is always awful – as regard of him, but Claude feels too good to wait.

Dimitri collapses on him when it’s all over. Claude can barely feel anything but his breath on the crook of his neck, wet from the intensity of their impromptu intercourse with the most hazardous timing, since his limbs seem to have gone for a walk without his consent and his chest barely has any energy left to rise and fall with his breathing.

Something tickles his cheek. Dimitri nuzzles him. Claude turns his head, their eyes meet and they stare. They stare at each other in holy silence, as Claude wonders how he never saw before how beautiful Dimitri _truly_ was, so much more than himself he looks like a God of Light, and Claude could stare at him forever, if only Fate were gentle with them.

There are probably a thousand of things they should say, confess even, but the moment seems poorly chosen, and so fragile in the light of the upcoming events none of them want to think about; words would make their world collapse, break this moment of grace where the only light comes from their heart and afterglow, their feelings raw and pure, and if only he could Claude would make it last a lifetime, just staring at Dimitri who stares back at him with equal adoration. He sighs.

The moment is perfect because of its evanescence.

And soon their love would die at the edge of dawn, when Claude will take his horns back the sun will shine truly again, and Dimitri suddenly will be gone.

The eventuality, no, the truth scares him, it paralyzes his throat and Claude cannot speak; words will break this moment and time will run again, and their separation will become once again something they are both rushing to.

They stare at each other in silence for a little eternity, since it is all they have been given.

Once they have put back their clothes on, weapons in hands and eyes set on the Monastery, Dimitri drops a kiss on his forehead.

“Stay close to me.” He says, but this time it doesn’t have the same meaning, Claude knows what these words hide.

The Monastery is surrounded by a thick smoke; it’s probably toxic, on top of having no visibility and even Dimitri doesn’t dare to walk right through it. Claude takes Failnaught in hands, he’s got three golden arrows in his quiver. “I’m afraid it’s all my powers will allow me to use after what happened the day before.”

“I am sorry.” Dimitri says.

Claude wonders what he’s truly apologizing for. He bends his bow. “It was my pleasure.” The arrow tears the darkness apart, revealing the horde of demons crouched under the smoke which vanished when touched by Claude’s light, clearing a path to the entrance. Their goal is at arm’s reach now.

“Let’s go.” Claude says under his breath. He advances.

“Claude, wait.”

Dimitri does not. There’s something that tides him on the spot he occupies that Claude can’t see.

“Dimitri?” He speaks when nothing else follows.

There’s also something that tides Dimitri's throat, refrains him to speak his mind, what his heart wants to shout; it all stays inside, concealed, “Nothing.” Hidden from the light, eaten by regrets. “Let’s go.”

And Claude sees in his eye there was something important he had wished to share before they go, but he’s afraid he isn’t as good as he thought he was at reading Dimitri’s mind. It’ll have to wait, later, if they'll ever have something like this.

The first mage on their way is an old acquittance of Dimitri. “Solon…” He groans as he recognizes the man, his deformed head and claw like hands. With Areadbhar in hand, shining like it never did before, Dimitri surges on him, dodging his first bow and slices him in two with a single bow before Claude has the time to blink. How extraordinary that he got his strength and agility back so close to the ultimate source of light, while he was barely able to walk on his own before. Claude figures it has to do with what he did to him, after all didn’t he poured his vital energy into him to keep him alive? Then, do his horns have the same effect they have on him, does he feel more powerful each step that brings him closer to them?

As they reach the main gate more demons await, bigger and more powerful than before; Claude feels something fishy is going on, because how could they be unaffected by his power so close from the primary source? Their enemies must use a scheme they haven’t figured out yet, even in the Heavens, as for why such an absurdity can occur.

Yet, opposed to such great opponents the demons are nothing next to their forces combined, Claude covering Dimitri as he runs like a mad man to the battlefield, and his lance pierces, cuts, transfixes every last one of them, until their boots are tainted by a pool of black blood.

One of these terrible beasts left a cut on Dimitri’s cheek and Claude can’t help it, the second he notices there’s one of his fingers covering it, healing it, despite knowing it’s unnecessary and a waste of energy, and that Dimitri will probably be so angry at him – except he’s not; if anything Dimitri stares in awe, as if he didn’t know already all the secrets Claude hides so well, as if this act of pure kindness and care swooped off his feet better than any attack he could have received and put him bare, vulnerable in front of him and it's all it took to defeat him, he who has always been so strong yet so weak in front of something so simple as a caress, but that has been refused to him for so long.

“I see…this will be easier than I think.”

Both jump and turn their head to where the unknown voice came from: there’s another mage with white eyes, skin the same colour as Solon, who’s wearing Claude’s horns and grins, showing his pointy teeth. This is their final enemy, the mastermind behind all this.

“Wait, Dimitri,” he holds his arm, they cannot take him down without knowing exactly what his plan is made of. “Let me talk to him.”

“Demons don’t lose their time in idle chitchat Claude.”

“What’s your name?” Claude ignores him, taking a step forward, showing braveness – and not foolishness, he hopes – but the demon in front of them only laughs at him. “What are your plans? Why stealing my horns? And why now?”

“Why, you ask?”

“That is not difficult to guess Claude.” Dimitri mutters, lance in hands, he advances cleverly, expecting Claude to catch their enemy’s attention while he could snick from a corner and attack – where to hide though? The roof perhaps? The reception hall is in ruin, only some pillars stand still, and the ground is full of debris. “Keep talking.” He says, before they part.

“It’s enough of your supremacy, Sun Gods, it is time for the Darkness to rise, and claim back the lands you so unfairly disposed of us so many centuries ago.”

Dimitri was right, in hindsight, that was pretty easy to guess – isn’t it always the same story told again and again, to each new generation, the endless battle of Good against Evil?

“As for the rest of your inquiries, I guess you have the right to know the name of the one who will soon end your life. I am Thales, the King of the Night.”

“Then tell me, Thales, how are you able to hold my horns without vanishing?”

“Oh, you haven’t figured this one yet? I thought you were supposed to be the cleverest of all, Golden Deer, but I am also surprised to see you’re not insensible to the most cruellest weapon of all, and that love does make one blind, more than any light. What a delight. We share the same blood, him and I.”

And Thales raises his arm, aims directly where Dimitri is hidden and sends a magic spell toward him, of a light darker than the night itself, a gruesome attempt on his life. “No!” Claude shouts, hoping Dimitri will have foreseen it all and dodged the attack. What remains on the roof crumbles under his feet and Dimitri falls behind the both of them, but still with grace and elegance, and the only sign of his misstep is perhaps the dust on his coat and nothing else. Yet Thales smirks as if he had already won when their battle hasn’t started yet, which sends Claude a wave of panic, and he sees his enemy’s confidence as a bad omen.

Suddenly dark flames surround Dimitri and a gust of wind brings them closer to where he landed. “Burn in the eternal flames!” Thales triumphs, and Claude feels before he sees that the flames are taking Dimitri away from him, in a place forbidden to him – eternal flames, does he meant Hell? A place where Dimitri will meet all the demons he fought during those four centuries, and who certainly hold him grudges; the worst place for him to spend eternity?

Now that the spell is sent there’s nothing he can do to prevent it from taking Dimitri away, yet Claude can’t stay still and stare in utter terror at the scene without acting, and it is perhaps a bit foolish, stupid even, of him to rush to him without any clever schemes in mind but legs never were supposed to have a mind on their own to begin with, and they most listen to his heart than his brain – Dimitri has this effect on him, often, if not all the time – and that’s how he finds himself protecting him from the dark flames which fatally bring them together in a place of eternal darkness, of endless emptiness where not a single ray of light transpires, not even a gust of wind.

It feels like a cursed place that knows nothing of the universal laws of time and space, a place that does not belong to the world Claude has known, nor does Dimitri. They don’t even feel anything supporting their feet, it’s like they’re floating in nothingness, unable to escape their fate.

“Claude! Are you alright? Why did you run into the enemy’s trap like this?!”

And now that Claude puts his brain back on track, in hindsight it has been perhaps the stupidest of his terrible ideas so far. “I thought you wouldn’t get out of this mess without me.” But now both are trapped in here it seems, and with no idea of how to get out. “And, for my defence, it sounded brilliant in my head. Do you have any idea of where the Hell Thales sent us?”

Dimitri looks around, only their holy weapons give them light, it is even darker than the first moments Claude jumped from the Heavens. “I’d say we’re in the Abyss. A world between ours and the one of the dead, a prison for demons that aren’t wanted even in Hell. There’s no way to get out, and we’ll probably meet some of these terrible beasts and fight them until our demises.”

“Hopefully I’m the optimistic one.” Claude takes out one of his arrows from the quiver.

“Claude, what are you doing?”

“We’re told about this place, back in the Heavens, don’t you remember? The Legends of the Abyss…a hero falls into them, and the Goddess Herself saves him from an eternity of torment, by gifting him with a ray of light, so pure it tears the darkness and builds a bridge with the hero’s world.” He bends his bow. “So, all we need is light, right?”

“That is but a legend.”

“You have a better idea, perhaps?” Claude asks, a bit irritated – why can’t he see this makes perfect sense!? “If not, I’ll go.”

“You’re going to waste your power; you’ll only have one arrow left.” Dimitri warns him.

“And one is enough to get rid of our little friend, trust me.”

Claude shots, the arrow leaves their sight to become a single luminescent dot, illuminating the Abyss for a second before it tears the thigh curtain of darkness apart in a blast. A wave of golden light surges on them, submerges them both until they reappear into the Monastery again exactly where they left, behind Thales, who plays with Claude’s horns that he has taken off his head.

He turns around at the racket they make and drops them. “You! Impossible, how could you!?”

Claude sweeps the dust out of his knees. “Does someone actually have some faith in me? I’m hurt, you know.”

“No one’s supposed to get out of this place you know.” Dimitri speaks quietly, Areadbhar shines bright in his hand. “Let’s take him down now, I’ll keep him busy while you take back your horns.” And in an instant Claude loses sight of him, misses his presence next to him. Dimitri swops on Thales with all he’s got, and the dark mage’s magic fields won’t be able to contain him for long, with each attack Thales takes a step back, and the horns are left unwatched.

Claude walks to them. He kneels, he can have them if only his hand would take them. Their journey is over. They won.

“Come on, take them, Golden Deer,” Thales mutters, breathless, unprepared to face such furry, powerless in front of Dimitri’s strength and resolve, “Take back your power and erase us all from your sight!”

Claude’s hand halts: all, he said?

The moment he feared the most is a centimetre away from him, he knew this will come eventually, they both knew it, and Thales did as well, perhaps even better, and anticipated how torn Claude would be.

“Claude! What are you waiting for?!” Dimitri yells at him, but it is not him who will make the cruellest sacrifice in the end, he’ll still see him, and hear him while Claude, with this hand alone, will sentence him once more to a live of eternal solitude, of endless fight, for his sake only and he doesn’t want that. He’s not ready, they haven’t gotten the time to say goodbye.

“Claude!”

He looks up; somehow Thales took advantage of Dimitri’s greatest weakness and while he had been busy checking on Claude, he hit him with one of his most powerful spells. Dimitri now lies on his back, groaning in pain which somehow Claude feels as well in the middle of his chest, and he’s about to end him, he prepares another spell, dark magic between his hands.

“This was easy, I told you. You were so predictable, both of you.” The sinister ball increases in front of him. “You thought yourself invulnerable, but you’re not immune to the most, effective, cruellest weapon of all.”

Thales sends a beam of light directly towards Dimitri’s chest, who still lies, stunned still, a couple of metre away and it’s going to kill him, Claude knows, it’s going to kill him on the spot and this time he’s too far to do anything about it. There’s only one option left, and it’s both too easy and predictable that Claude feels the scheme before he acts.

He grasps his horns and cries.

They burn his palm like poison, they must have been charmed as well. But he won’t let of them, no matter the pain, they are his and he won’t let go.

As the spell progresses at the speed of light Claude lets his instincts act for him and he draws his last arrow. His light counters Thales, and the spell is reoriented far away from Dimitri. He’s unharmed, for now, and Claude breathes again.

“Tsk, you only delayed your defeat. Those horns are mine now, you aren’t their rightful owner, and with your death my light will reign on Fódlan!”

Claude looks for another arrow but his quiver is empty. Dammit! So close to their goal!

“But this means they’ll go back to their rightful owner after your death, right?”

Dimitri recovered from the last bow, he holds his side that bleeds and Areadbhar on the other hand; he stands just behind Thales and he gazes right through him, to Claude, his eye searches for his and it shines with dawning tears.

“No,” Claude breathes, “Please, Dimitri.” It’s all happening so fast, they didn’t have time to say goodbye.

“It was an honour.” Are Dimitri final words.

He stabs Thales’s back; Areadbhar gets out of him, soaked with his black blood.

The horns blind them in their infinite light, and even Claude, unaccustomed with such intensity since he fell on Fódlan, has to cover his eyes at the sight.

When he opens them again, the Monastery is empty, except for birds and their songs.

He stands alone, his horns back on his head.

* * *

During the next couple of weeks Claude spent all his time hidden from the world, be it Heaven or Earth, and there’s never been so much people knocking on his door and praying for his return. On the sixth week he surrenders to his present assailant, as this one is none but his greatest rival, and Claude knows too well Lorenz will never leave him alone, not after hearing how furious his knocks were.

“Oh, at last you _deign_ to bless us with your presence.” His voice hides worry behind the poisonous words, and Claude is surprised to see he hasn’t come alone. Behind him, Hilda is holding bunch of presents it seems, offerings from his believers. “It’s been too long, you need to appear at least _an hour_. People are starting to take it as a bad omen and fears the apocalypse.”

“Okay, okay; but I won’t go to the Goddess Tower.” He warns, his eyes set on what Hilda’s holding immediately. “Are there for me?”

Hilda enters his room without his permission and puts all her stuff on his already messy bed. “Here. I’m done with you. Just reappear to say hi so people will stop sending gift for you to come back! I’m not your secretary.”

“And you should go to the Goddess Tower, Golden Deer. The Prophet has some…interesting news, for you.”

Still mourning his loss, Claude sends his friends away a bit too quickly perhaps, and Hilda will know there’s something else he doesn’t tell them, but he has recognized in the pile of presents she brought him something that caught his eyes.

It’s a parchment, a couple of those are familiar, the paper is one he has seen before. Claude unrolls the first one and gasps, of course it could only be it, Dimitri’s portrait, the offerings come from Ignaz and his village.

Claude stares at him for a while, a swirl of emotion he still doesn’t know what to do with rises in his chest. Sometimes he talks to himself, hoping he’s not alone.

“Hey, are you there, with me?” He says, and he knows he will never be replied again, but somehow he still believes he will feel, once more, the warmth of his fingertips on his, the ghost of his embrace gently holding him at night, a feeling he has lost since he gained his horns back. “Dimitri, can you hear me? If you do, you’re beautiful. If you don’t, Goddess, I miss you so much.”

He lets a single tear runs on his cheek, and no more. How does he get used to it? Will it take another four centuries to get rid of it, to feel whole without him, to feel like he finally finds himself in the wildness of the world?

The second parchment is a composition. It’s a gift, it’s exactly what Claude had asked of Ignaz – a painting of them. They’re having tea together, enjoying the morning sun and they smile; it seems like Claude just told a terrible joke and Dimitri is too polite not to smile, and there’s a sort of comfort and ease in the way Ignaz painted them, as if they have lived together for years, and it’s a small miracle in itself that he could portrayed them as much, when having met them for so short. The painting alone is worth all the gifts he has ever received, and Claude decides he’ll come back to this village only to thank him, and perhaps if he’s a bit bold, ask for another one when it will hurt too much for this one painting alone to groom his broken heard.

He’ll have to get out, eventually. Claude knows they arrested traitors, Gods who worked with Thales as their Shadow and attacked him in the Goddess Tower, and there is literally nothing else to be done – the Goddess herself hadn’t been awaken for so little, and if the event lasted for a heartbeat for every single one of those living in the Heavens, for Claude, what he found and then lost in this adventure cost him a lifetime, and the damages might be too important to ever be repaired.

Sometimes, at night, he closes his eyes. He concentrates and he thinks he feels him. His head against his, his hands on his hips, his lips running on his neck, his breath against his ear. He’s talking, he thinks, or is it just in his head? “I love you too.” He whispers to the night, knowing fully she’ll be the only one to overheard this most personal confession.

There’s something wrong, he realizes a couple of days later. He cannot feel him at all, and after a dream he had of an ancient time, a carefree time when he hadn’t been aware that such a formidable man lived in his shadow, and he remembered now how it felt, how Claude always had the impression that someone was watching him, the weight on his back and now all of this has gone. Dimitri as gone, and he has a theory.

Dimitri might not be a Shadow anymore, or at least, not totally.

“You, what a surprise.” Judith speaks loudly from her high throne. Sothis sleeps on Hers, and Byleth remains silent, but their eyes never leave his. “I guess we have something you need, or you’ll never come this far. Speak, my dear nephew.”

“I’m wondering where my Shadow went.”

“Seriously? All this dramatic entrance to ask about the fate of the damned Dimitri Alexander Blaiddyd?” Son of the Lion King, banished from the Heavens after he committed atrocities, bound to Claude to serve him for eternity until he paid his debt with his life, yes, that man, that beautiful mad man.

“I know he’s gone. I can’t…sense him anymore, and I was wondering what could happen to a Shadow after they’ve been exposed to an important amount of light.” Do they gain back their former glory? Or do they disappear like demons? He needs to know, urgently.

Judith sighs, she seems tired already. “My boy, I am touched by your worries, but a Shadow remains a Shadow until we decide otherwise, and as for yours, as they have been creatures of light before, they cannot be destroy by it.”

“Then why?” Where has Dimitri done?

“Dimitri has been discharged of his duty the moment you came back.” Byleth speaks, silencing them both – and Claude’s thoughts as well. What? What does it mean? He’s been discharged? “We decided that in helping you he paid enough for his crimes. We suspended his punishment; he’s now free to go wherever he pleases.”

Claude stares at him with wild eyes. Dimitri is not a Shadow anymore? Which mean he can see him, right? Even touch him? They’re not cursed anymore? But where is he?

And as if Byleth reads his mind, they answer his silent plead. “Sometime there are more shadows than meet the eyes, and Dimitri might be beset by another kind of darkness, by inner demons he isn’t strong enough to fight on his own. We dismiss the sentence we put upon him, but he has yet to defeat his most terrible opponent, the shadows that reside in his own heart. And this is the reason why you can’t feel him behind your back, nor see him with your eyes.”

“Do you mean he’s stuck?” Between Darkness and Light, a wounded soul who cannot decide where to live. “How can I help him?”

“Only you have the answer to this problem, Golden Deer. May your voice reach him, or he’ll be lost forever.”

“And you’ve waited so long to tell me all this?! How long has he waited for me!?”

“Who’s the one who refused to answer our summoning?” Judith asks him, but too late, Claude has run out of the Antechamber to the outside world. She sighs. “This boy. He’s so lucky I love him.”

“Don’t we all?” Byleth says with a smile.

Claude runs past Hilda who has been waiting for him, to the guardrail; the scene is awfully familiar, but this time he has something much more important to find, and whose loss would be unbearable. “Where are you going again?”

“Down. Don’t wait for me.” He waves and jumps into the void.

The landing is far more pleasant than last time, as he floats above the ground before his feet eventually meet earth. “I’m back, Fódlan.” And Fódlan has never been so beautiful and healthy, the birds sing, the grass has never been so green, the flowers bloom – humans are happy that he’s back, he can hear them laugh and sign his praises.

But he isn’t there for humans. He needs to find Dimitri.

If he’s still tormented by his crimes he must still be here, stuck with his ancient duty, to protect Claude from invisible forces that once wanted his demise. “Dimitri! Where are you!?” He hopes his voice can reach him and takes Dimitri out of his nightmare.

He retraces their journey, every place they ever shared memories in – the tarn, the little cabin, the village, the Monastery, even the crumbling house where Claude cured him, and where he was so sure he would find him – but does not find him, Dimitri is nowhere to be seen.

He doesn’t surrender though. He’ll look for him another lifetime if needed. He can feel his presence, somewhere, he knows he’s close.

After the third day someone comes to find him in one of his temples. Claude hasn’t spelt, the sun never came down since he arrived.

It’s Ignaz.

“I thought it was you.” He says.

Claude offers him a smile. “Thank you. For your offerings.”

“I promised after all.”

He sits next to him, never looking at him. They remain silent for a bit.

“Golden Deer, I think you should come with me, to my place.” He stands up, and somehow Claude feels he must follow him. “There’s…something weird, in my grandfather’s gallery. I’d like you to have a look.”

And indeed, when Claude stands in front of the door, there’s a sort of gloomy atmosphere that wasn’t there when they first visited the place. It’s like the room is haunted, by a ghost or better, an old shadow that can’t let go of its past.

Claude takes a step in. Goddess, he’s here. He finally found him.

Of course he can’t see him, they don’t belong in the same world but Dimitri stands in the same room as he but in a parallel dimension, and perhaps Claude can make another miracle, perhaps his voice can reach, and he can bring him back to the light.

“Dimitri? Can you hear me?” he advances in the depth of the room, where Dimitri’s portrait once was.

“...is it.”

The voice is weak, but it’s here, it’s _his_.

“Where it is?” He repeats. He must be staring at the empty space where his portrait was supposed to be. “Where has he gone?”

“Dimitri.”

He hears him gasp. It must have heard.

“…No, it cannot be.”

“Of course it can, Dimitri, I’m here. I came back for you.”

And Claude sees him, well, not quite, but he guesses the outline of his body, sees the shadow of his coat, he’s standing so close, he’s almost at arm’s reach, if only he would come back to the right world.

“Where…has it gone? Where is the good part of me, was I gifted with one to begin with?”

“I’m so sorry Dimitri, I took it with me.” Claude replies to his ask, he takes another step forward. “I asked Ignaz to give me your portrait, because I can never stand to live in a world where I cannot see you.”

Dimitri turns his head to the side but never quite stares his way. He doesn’t believe he’s here, doesn’t believe he’s being rescued, that someone would care enough to go out of their way for someone who’s worth nothing, even less than a worm, a boar.

It’s painful how much clear his thoughts are for Claude. His heart breaks the more they cross his mind.

“You’re not worthless. You’re someone good, Dimitri, you care and you’ve grown so much,” and perhaps it is what he came to look for, here, a proof that he has changed, a weapon to fight his own demons that Claude selflessly took it from him. “You’re not the Shadow you used to be when you were first assigned to me. You’re different. And I care. I’ll come back for you anytime. I’ll go to Hell to take you out of here myself if you were to fall there.”

“Claude? Is that really you? Or have I gone mad enough to hallucinate your voice, so dear to me?”

His silhouette appears in front of Claude, but it’s not real, not yet, Claude cannot touch him. “Of course it’s me; do you have so little faith in me?”

“Faith in you? That’s all I have left. Faith in me, on the other hand…”

“I have enough for the two of us.” Claude risks a hand on his shoulder but his body passes through Dimitri as if he were made of smoke. “And I won’t come back to the Heavens without you. This is your place now, the Prophet freed you from me.”

“And now I have nowhere to go.”

“What? What on earth don’t you understand in ‘I won’t come back without you’!? You’ll stay with me. I don’t want to spend another second without you by my side. I won’t leave without you.”

“Lies. All lies.” Dimitri laughs bitterly. “You don’t need me by your side. You’ll be happier without me, trust me, I’ll be happier without me as well.”

“It’s true that I don’t need you.” His silhouette starts to vanish, Claude panics, “I mean, _needing_ someone is awful; you lose your ability to think and act on your own, you lose half of yourself if you depend on someone, on people too much, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be with you, Dimitri, I love you.”

And then he sees him as bright as day. “You what?” He has his hair long and to his surprise Dimitri doesn’t wear his eye patch, and both his eyes shine like sapphires.

“Isn’t it obvious? I have, loved you, before I even knew you exist.” Claude walks to him, his hand raises to his cheek. It’s solid under his touch. He’s bringing him back. “Please, Dimitri, let’s go home. Go home with me.”

“But I don’t have any. I don’t belong anywhere.” Only then Dimitri shows his sorrow, and as he cries, silently, Claude has never found him more beautiful. He’s just scared, has stayed in the shadows for so long he forgot what it felt to live, or how to, and the last time people saw him he was nothing but a beast, his heart tainted with pain and rage but now the boar is long gone, and Dimitri came back here to look for the man he wanted to become.

“You always had me. You’ll always have me. It doesn’t even have to be in Heavens, we can go anywhere you want.” After he followed Claude wherever he pleased, and risked his life countless time for him, it is the least Claude must do. “Someone else can be a Sun God and take my place. We can literally be anything you’d want us to be, we’ll be free.”

Dimitri smiles, oh Goddess, what a sight. “Really?”

“Well, I won’t exactly leave them the choice.” Not after he saw how gentle his true smile can be.

His cheek suddenly feels warm against Claude's palm. His armour, once as black as the deep of the night, transforms into what it used to be before his father died, and reveals its white colour. Only the blue cross on his chest remains, because the past can never be totally forgotten.

“Hey, hello handsome.” Claude cups his face, his thumbs brush against his cheekbones. “Welcome back.”

Dimitri links their forehead together. Tears of joy fall between them. “I’m home.” He says, before kissing his forehead.

* * *

The next days in Heavens passed in utter chaos, as Claude simply announced his departure and left his horns in the middle of the Antechamber, leaving his aunt speechless and short for a clever word to make him stay. They had to nominate someone on the spot, and the only crazy mind who wished to take this most difficult role was none but Lorenz, to Hilda’s despair, as she became his new protector. It is said that sometimes, as the sun rises humans of Fódlan would hear it laugh in the most noble ways, and if it startled them at first, they soon got used to it and even embrace the new habit, and laughing had become the new way of greeting each other.

And as for Claude and Dimitri, no one knows where they have disappear. Legends speak of noble men traveling around the country and fighting to help those in needs, and especially in a specific area of the wild lands of Fódlan.

“My father loved it here. He adored the cold. This is where he met my mother.”

“Your mother was human?” Dimitri nods, this would explain why he couldn’t succeed his father, and perhaps why Claude loves him so much. “So, the Holy Kingdom of Fearghus. I wonder what sort of adventures awaits us.”

And trouble does find them quickly, as in front of them a ginger man is struggling with his life, running away from what seems to be a horde of women, visibly angry at him.

“Help! Please help!” He cries in the void of the night, to none in particular, as the streets are empty of all but them.

“So, what do we do, dear friend?” Claude raises an eyebrow, this is not exactly how Dimitri pictured them protecting the weak and the defenceless, but everyone, even former Gods, must start somewhere. “Shall we help that flirty fellow?”

And Dimitri sighs, Areadbhar still in hand. “I guess we have no choice but to listen to his story, at least.”

Claude smiles. “Let’s go then.”

Dimitri holds his hand. “Stay close to me.” He says.

Claude rolls his eyes to the Heavens. As if it could be otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading ! If you liked it please leave me a kudos, or a comment! You can also share it with your friend.  
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